The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

  Her neck tensed and hands stiffened. “Live my life.”

  “Is this about Ely or you?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  Partly, she was right. It shouldn’t matter either way. This was her fight. Not his. But he was drawn to this woman, even though she obviously cared for someone else. So he flushed emotion from his brain and asked, “What did Viktor’s fingerprints reveal? Nobody mentioned a word about that at dinner.”

  “He works for Supreme Minister Irina Zovastina. Head of her personal guard.”

  “Was anyone going to tell me?”

  She shrugged. “Eventually. If you’d wanted to know.”

  He quelled his anger, realizing she was taunting him. “You think the Central Asian Federation is directly involved?”

  “The elephant medallion in the Samarkand museum has not been touched.”

  Good point.

  “Ely found the first tangible evidence of Alexander the Great’s lost tomb in centuries. I know he passed that on to Zovastina, because he told me about her reaction. She’s obsessed with Greek history and Alexander. The museum in Samarkand is well funded because of her interest in the Hellenistic Age. When Ely discovered Ptolemy’s riddle about Alexander’s tomb, Zovastina was fascinated.” Cassiopeia hesitated. “He died less than a week after telling her.”

  “You think he was murdered?”

  “His house burned to the ground. Not much left of it or him.”

  The dots connected. Greek fire. “And what of the manuscripts he uncovered?”

  “We had some inquiries made by academicians. No one at the museum knew anything.”

  “And now more buildings are burning and medallions are being stolen.”

  “Something like that.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I haven’t decided if I need your help.”

  “You do.”

  She appraised him with suspicion. “How much do you know about the historical record regarding Alexander’s grave?”

  “He was first entombed by Ptolemy at Memphis, in southern Egypt, about a year after he died. Then Ptolemy’s son moved the body north to Alexandria.”

  “That’s right. Sometime between 283 BCE, when Ptolemy I died, and 274. A mausoleum was built in a new quarter of the city, at a crossroad of two main avenues that flanked the royal palace. It eventually came to be called the Soma—Greek for body. The grandest tomb in the grandest city of the time.”

  “Ptolemy was smart,” he said. “He waited until all of Alexander’s heirs were dead then proclaimed himself pharaoh. His heirs were smart, too. They reshaped Egypt into a Greek kingdom. While the other Companions mismanaged or lost their portions of the empire, the Ptolemys kept theirs for three hundred years. That Soma was used to great political advantage.”

  She nodded. “An amazing story, actually. Alexander’s tomb became a place of pilgrimage. Caesar, Octavian, Hadrian, Caligula, and a dozen other emperors came to pay homage. Should have been quite a site. A gold-encrusted mummy with a golden crown, encased in a golden sarcophagus, surrounded by golden honey. For a century and a half Alexander lay undisturbed until Ptolemy IX needed money. He stripped the body of all its gold and melted the coffin, replacing it with a glass one. The Soma eventually stood for six hundred years. The last record of it existing was in 391 CE.”

  He knew the rest of the tale. Both the building and the remains of Alexander the Great disappeared. For sixteen hundred years people had searched. But the greatest conqueror of the ancient world, a man venerated as a living god, had vanished.

  “Do you know where the body is?” he asked.

  “Ely thought he did.” The words sounded distant, as if she were talking to his ghost.

  “You think he was right?”

  She shrugged. “We’re going to have to go and see.”

  “Where?”

  She finally looked at him with tired eyes. “Venice. But first we have to get that last medallion. The one Viktor is surely headed toward right now.”

  “And where is it?”

  “Interestingly, it’s in Venice, too.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  SAMARKAND

  2:50 A.M

  Zovastina smiled at the papal nuncio. He was a handsome man with gray-streaked, auburn hair and a pair of keenly inquisitive eyes. An American. Monsignor Colin Michener. Part of the new Vatican orchestrated by the first African pope in centuries. Twice before, this emissary had come and inquired if the Federation would allow a Catholic presence, but she’d rebuked both attempts. Though Islam was the nation’s dominant religion, the nomadic people who’d long populated central Asia had always placed their law ahead of even the Islamic sharia. A geographical isolation bred a social independence, even from God, so she doubted Catholics would even be welcomed. But still, she needed something from this envoy and the time had come to bargain.

  “You’re not a night person?” she asked, noticing the tired look Michener tried only minimally to conceal.

  “Isn’t this time traditionally reserved for sleeping?”

  “It wouldn’t be to either of our advantages to be seen meeting in the middle of the day. Your Church is not all that popular here.”

  “Something we’d like to change.”

  She shrugged. “You’d be asking the people to abandon things they’ve held precious for centuries. Not even the Muslims, with all their discipline and moral precepts, have been able to do that. You’ll find the organizational and political uses of religion appeal far more here than spiritual benefits.”

  “The Holy Father doesn’t want to change the Federation. He only asks that the Church be allowed the freedom to pursue those who want to practice our faith.”

  She grinned. “Have you visited any of our holy sites?”

  He shook his head.

  “I encourage you to. You’ll notice quite a few interesting things. Men will kiss, rub, and circumambulate venerated objects. Women crawl under holy stones to boost their fertility. And don’t overlook the wishing trees and the Mongol poles with horsehair tassels set over graves. Amulets and charms are quite popular. The people place their faith in things that have nothing to do with your Christian God.”

  “There’s a growing number of Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, even a few Buddhists among those people. Apparently there are some who want to worship differently. Are they not entitled to the same privilege?”

  Another reason she’d finally decided to entertain this messenger was the Islamic Renaissance Party. Though outlawed years ago, it quietly thrived, especially in the Fergana Valley of the old Uzbekistan. She’d covertly infected the main troublemakers and thought she’d killed off its leaders, but the party refused to be extinguished. Allowing greater religious competition, especially from an organization such as the Roman Catholics, would force the Islamics to focus their rage on an enemy even more threatening than she. So she said, “I’ve decided to grant the Church access to the Federation.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “With conditions.”

  The priest’s pleasant face lost its brightness.

  “It’s not that bad,” she said. “Actually, I have only one simple request. Tomorrow evening, in Venice, within the basilica, the tomb of St. Mark will be opened.”

  A perplexed look invaded the emissary’s eyes.

  “Surely you’re familiar with the story of St. Mark and how he came to be buried in Venice?”

  Michener nodded. “I have a friend who works in the basilica. He and I have discussed it.”

  She knew the tale. Mark, one of Christ’s twelve disciples, ordained by Peter as bishop of Alexandria, was martyred by the city’s pagans in 67 CE. When they tried to burn his body, a storm doused the flames and allowed Christians time to snatch it back. Mark was mummified, then entombed secretly until the fourth century. After the Christian takeover of Alexandria, an elaborate sepulcher was built, which became so holy that Alexandria’s newly appointed patriarchs were each invested upon Mark’s t
omb. The shrine managed to survive the arrival of Islam and the seventh-century Persian and Arab invasions.

  But in 828 a group of Venetian merchants stole the body.

  Venice wanted a symbolic statement of both its political and theological independence. Rome possessed Peter, Venice would have Mark. At the same time, the Alexandrian clergy were extremely concerned about the city’s sacred relics. Islamic rule had become more and more antagonistic. Shrines and churches were being dismantled. So, with the aid of the tomb’s guardians, the body of St. Mark was whisked away.

  Zovastina loved the details.

  The nearby corpse of St. Claudian was substituted to hide the theft. The aroma of the embalming fluids was so strong that, to discourage authorities from examining the departing ship’s cargo, layers of cabbage leaves and pork were wrapped over the corpse. Which worked—Muslim inspectors fled in horror at the presence of pig. The body was then sheathed in canvas and hoisted to a yardarm. Supposedly, on the sail back to Italy, a visit from the ghost of St. Mark saved the ship from foundering during a storm.

  “On January 31, 828, Mark was presented to the doge in Venice,” she said. “The doge housed the holy remains in the palace, but they eventually disappeared, reemerging in 1094 when the newly finished Basilica di San Marco was formally dedicated. The remains were then placed in a crypt below the church, but were moved upstairs in the nineteenth century, beneath the high altar, where they are today. Lots of missing gaps in the history of that body, wouldn’t you say?”

  “That’s the way of relics.”

  “Four hundred years in Alexandria, then again for nearly three hundred years in Venice, St. Mark’s body was not to be found.”

  The nuncio shrugged. “It’s faith, Minister.”

  “Alexandria always resented that theft,” she said. “Especially the way Venice has, for centuries, venerated the act, as if the thieves were on a holy mission. Come now, we both know the whole thing was political. The Venetians stole from around the world. Scavengers on a grand scale, taking whatever they could acquire, using it all to their advantage. St. Mark was, perhaps, their most productive theft. The whole city, to this day, revolves around him.”

  “So why are they opening the tomb?”

  “Bishops and nobles of the Coptic and Ethiopian churches want St. Mark returned. In 1968 your Pope Paul VI gave the patriarch of Alexandria a few relics to placate them. But those came from the Vatican, not Venice, and didn’t work. They want the body back, and have long discussed it with Rome.”

  “I served as papal secretary to Clement XV. I’m aware of those discussions.”

  She’d long suspected this man was more than a nuncio. The new pope apparently chose his envoys with care. “Then you’re aware the Church would never surrender that body. But the patriarch in Venice, with Rome’s approval, has agreed to a compromise—part of your African pope’s reconciliation with the world. Some of the relic, from the tomb, will be returned. That way, both sides are satisfied. But this is a delicate matter, especially for Venetians. Their saint disturbed.” She shook her head. “That’s why the tomb will be opened tomorrow night, in secret. Part of the remains will be removed, then the sepulcher closed. No one the wiser until an announcement of the gift is made in a few days.”

  “You have excellent information.”

  “It’s a subject in which I have an interest. The body in that tomb is not St. Mark’s.”

  “Then who is it?”

  “Let’s just say that the body of Alexander the Great disappeared from Alexandria in the fourth century, at nearly the exact time the body of St. Mark reappeared. Mark was enshrined in his own version of Alexander’s Soma, which was venerated, just as Alexander’s had been for six hundred years prior. My scholars have studied a variety of ancient texts, some the world has never seen—”

  “And you think the body in the Venetian basilica is actually that of Alexander the Great?”

  “I’m not saying anything, only that DNA analysis can now determine race. Mark was born in Libya to Arab parents. Alexander was Greek. There would be noticeable chromosomal differences. I’m also told there are dentine isotope studies, tomography, and carbon dating that could tell us a lot. Alexander died in 323 BCE. Mark in the first century after Christ. Again, there would be scientific differences in the remains.”

  “Do you plan to defile the corpse?”

  “No more than you plan to. Tell me, what will they cut away?”

  The American considered her statement. She’d sensed, early on, that he’d returned to Samarkand with far more authority than before. Time to see if that were true. “All I want is a few minutes alone with the open sarcophagus. If I remove anything, it will not be noticed. In return, the Church may move freely through the Federation and see how many Christians take to its message. But the construction of any buildings would have to be government approved. That’s as much for your protection as ours. There’d be violence if church construction wasn’t handled carefully.”

  “Do you plan to travel to Venice yourself?”

  She nodded. “I’d like a low-profile visit, arranged by your Holy Father. I’m told the Church has many connections in the Italian government.”

  “You realize that, at best, Minister, anything you find there would be like the Shroud of Turin or Marian visions. A matter of faith.”

  But she knew that there could well be something conclusive. What had Ptolemy written in his riddle? Touch the innermost being of the golden illusion.

  “Just a few minutes alone. That’s all I ask.”

  The papal nuncio sat silent.

  She waited.

  “I’ll instruct the patriarch in Venice to grant you the time.”

  She was right. He’d not returned empty-handed. “Lots of authority for a mere nuncio.”

  “Thirty minutes. Beginning at one A.M., Wednesday. We’ll inform the Italian authorities that you’re coming to attend a private function, at the invitation of the Church.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll arrange for you to enter the cathedral through the Porta dei Fiori in the west atrium. At that hour, few people will be in the main square. Will you be alone?”

  She was tired of this officious priest. “If it matters, maybe we should forget about this.”

  She saw that Michener caught her irritation.

  “Minister, bring whoever you want. The Holy Father simply wants to make you happy.”

  THIRTY

  HAMBURG, GERMANY

  1:15 A.M.

  Viktor sat in the hotel bar. Rafael was upstairs, asleep. They’d driven south from Copenhagen, through Denmark, into northern Germany. Hamburg was the prearranged rendezvous point with the two members of the Sacred Band sent to Amsterdam to retrieve the sixth medallion. They should arrive sometime during the night. He and Rafael had handled the other thefts, but a deadline was looming, so Zovastina had ordered a second team into the field.

  He nursed a beer and enjoyed the quiet. Few patrons occupied the dimly lit booths.

  Zovastina thrived on tension. She liked to keep people on edge. Compliments were few, criticisms common. The palace staff. The Sacred Band. Her ministers. No one wanted to disappoint her. But he’d heard the talk behind her back. Interesting that a woman so attuned to power could become so oblivious to its resentment. Shallow loyalty was a dangerous illusion. Rafael was right, something was about to happen. As head of the Sacred Band he’d many times accompanied Zovastina to the laboratory in the mountains, east of Samarkand—this one on her side of the Chinese border, staffed with her people, where she kept her germs. He’d seen the test subjects, requisitioned from jails, and the horrible deaths. He’d also stood outside conference rooms while she plotted with her generals. The Federation possessed an impressive army, a reasonable air force, and a limited short-range missile capability. Most provided, and funded, by the West for defensive purposes since Iran, China, and Afghanistan all bordered the Federation.

  He’d not told Rafael, but he knew what she wa
s planning. He’d heard her speak of the chaos in Afghanistan, where the Taliban still clung to fleeting power. Of Iran, whose radical president constantly rattled sabers. And Pakistan, a place that exported violence with blinded eyes.

  Those nations were her initial goal.

  And millions would die.

  A vibration in his pocket startled him.

  He located the cell phone, glanced at the display, and answered, his stomach clenching into a familiar knot.

  “Viktor,” Zovastina said. “I’m glad I found you. There’s a problem.”

  He listened as she told him about an incident in Amsterdam, where two Sacred Band members had been killed while trying to obtain a medallion. “The Americans have made official inquires. They want to know why my people were shooting at Secret Service agents. Which is a good question.”

  He wanted to say it was probably because they were terrified of disappointing her, so their better judgment had been overridden by recklessness. But he knew better and only noted, “I would have preferred to handle the matter there myself.”

  “All right, Viktor. Tonight, I’m conceding this one. You were opposed to the second team and I overruled you.”

  He knew better than to acknowledge that concession. Incredible enough she’d offered it. “But you, Minister, want to know why the Americans just happened to be there?”

  “That did occur to me.”

  “It could be that we’ve been exposed.”

  “I doubt they care what we do. I’m more concerned with our Venetian League friends. Especially the fat one.”

  “Still, the Americans were there,” he said.

  “Could have been chance.”

  “What do they say?”

  “Their representatives refused to give any details.”

  “Minister,” he said in a hushed tone, “have we finally learned what we’re actually after?”