Operation Rubicon

by Preston William Child

  He was like a massive child, channeling his frustration into things that couldn't run away or fight back. He was like one of those demented adolescents that Santino had heard about; the kind of children who liked to slowly pick off the wings of flies or torture their pets. He couldn't imagine what this man must have been like at that age, but he imagined he was still humongous even then. He kept knocking down the Roman soldiers one by one like dominoes. He started from the back of the legion and was moving forward, making his way toward the front row where Santino was huddled with the soldiers.

  Santino didn't dare to look back and see. He kept so still that he could feel his body straining. It was taking everything he had not to move. All of his instincts were telling him to flee; to run away from this monster as quickly as he could. His brain knew to resist that urge though. If he tried to run, they would definitely catch him. He had a better possibility of surviving if he stayed hidden—even if it was only a slim chance.

  Prop swords and shields kept crashing to the floor as more troops were being knocked down. More and more fake soldiers were being slain as the big man continued to take out his frustrations on them. Each time a sword clattered on the floor, it felt like a countdown to Santino's own end. Death was creeping up behind him, but making sure that he knew it was on its way. He’d fall just like those mannequins, but at least they couldn't feel pain.

  “Do you always have to be so loud?” The woman was standing nearby, watching the large man flail and thrash about in the darkness of the room. “Would you stop for five seconds? You're giving me a goddamn headache!”

  The huge man stopped his tantrum and kicked one of the mannequins on the floor in frustration. He probably would have been just as brutal if they were living people he was destroying. He would have been able to beat real opponents just as easily as those prop models—or maybe even more easily? He clearly didn't like being told to stop; or at least, he hated having to stop giving into his blood lust.

  “Oh stop,” the woman said. “Let's go. He's probably hiding behind some vase or something.”

  The woman started tromping off, toward the room's exit. Santino felt so relieved but he made sure to keep holding his breath, and keep his body from making any sounds. If he let out a breath, that might just be enough sound to catch their attention and attract them to his presence.

  “Wait.”

  A shiver went up Santino's body but he refused to even shiver. The person that spoke that wasn't either the big man or the woman. It was a different voice but one that Santino still recognized. It was the other one—the leader of the Third Triumvirate—and the voice was coming from the direction of the doorway to the room. Santino didn't know how long that smaller man had been standing there...it might have even been the whole time and Santino just hadn't noticed him.

  “That testudo formation fell rather easily, wouldn't you say? There must have been something wrong with the formation. Perhaps someone was in the wrong spot, standing where one shouldn't...”

  There was the sound of a switch flipping and the lights above them turned on, filling the display room with light, and making everything around them visible. Santino instinctively kept still but was staring right at the leader in the doorway—and the masked man was looking right back at him. Santino must have looked so ridiculous, posing there beside the last few remaining mannequin soldiers. He’d been doing his best to blend in, but that was a lot easier with the lights off. Now, he stood out like a sore thumb where he stood, wearing a suit and posing without any actual weapons besides models adorned in armor and wielding rather realistic looking weaponry.

  Santino stood up straight, brushing himself off. They’d found him and there was nowhere left for him to hide.

  “There you are,” the huge man took hold of Santino's arm. His grip was so strong, it felt like he might snap his arm clean off. The man pulled Santino toward the leader, almost pulling his limb right out of its socket as he did. He kicked out the back of Santino's leg, forcing him onto his knees.

  The leader looked down at Santino and that passive mask hid what he was thinking. All Santino had to go on was the man's voice and it was triumphant and cold. “It was a valiant effort, Mr. Rossi.”

  Santino had tried so hard for so long to stay still but now, all of those restrained movements were pouring through his body. He was twitching, shivering, and every part of him quivered. He felt tears filling his eyes.

  He tried so hard to escape but now he saw that it was all for nothing there was no getting away from these people. They’d come to take his life, just like they said, and there was nothing he could about it. The two other members of the Third Triumvirate circled around, so they were standing on either side of the leader. Santino didn't want the last thing he ever saw to be those horrid masks that they wore. He didn't want to go out with those faces at the forefront of his final thoughts. It didn't look like he was going to have a choice, though.

  The masked man drew a knife from his belt. “This really isn't personal, Mr. Rossi.”

  “Then why?”

  The man must have been grinning behind his mask.

  “For the sake of Rome, of course.”

  9

  THE STONE FACES OF OLD

  There was a silhouette standing at the foot of Nina's bed. Her gaze rose up to the shape's face and she found a strange visage staring back at her in the dark. The eyes didn't blink. The lips never twitched. The expression was frozen in complete passive stillness.

  The only movement came from below the face as the figure held a finger up to its lips, signaling her to keep quiet.

  She refused. She wasn't going to let some lunatic silence her. Nina opened her mouth to yell, but the figure suddenly pounced on top of her, shoving his hand over her mouth. She writhed and struggled but the figure squeezed her jaw and smothered the sounds so they were impossible for Riley to hear from the bed beside her.

  A quiet whisper came behind those petrified lips. “Hello. It’s nice to meet you. I must ask that you don’t wake your friend. Doing so would only hurt her. Believe me, Dr. Gould. She will be much happier asleep than she would be awake.”

  Nina glanced to her left and saw a much bigger shape looming over the sleeping Riley. That man was far larger than the one on top of her and held a knife in his hand, keeping it raised over the slumbering young woman. The threat was clear enough. If she didn't cooperate, Riley would get her throat slit in her sleep. Nina stopped struggling, even though all of her instincts were telling her to fight this person off of her.

  “Good,” the masked man said as she stopped trying to push him off.

  As Nina looked more closely at her assailant and her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could tell that the stone face was nothing more than a mask and it suddenly occurred to Nina who this masked person might be. They had said that those thieves stealing antiques around Rome wore masks—the Third Triumvirate, that's what they had been called. This must be them. They definitely didn't care about proper introductions.

  The man kept his voice at a low register. “We've heard that you're looking for Caesar's sword.”

  Nina didn't answer. Even if she wanted to, the man's hand was still firmly covering her mouth. Slowly and cautiously, the man withdrew his hand, looking ready to latch it back onto her face if he had to. She complied but only because of the threat to Riley's life. That girl's blood wasn't going to be on her hands.

  “Where did you hear that from?” Nina muttered, genuinely curious about the answer.

  “We hear all kinds of things,” the masked man replied. “Do you know who we are?”

  “If I had to take a guess...I’d say that you’re those burglars running all over the museums around here. The petty thieves with masks stealing art pieces. Is that about right?”

  “Burglars...” The word seemed very insulting to whoever was behind that mask. “We are hardly burglars. No. We’re revolutionaries. All of us. It's not easy trying to change the world. Laws that are in place have to be broken and made i
nconsequential. Discard the rules of the old world. That's the first step to prepare for a new one.”

  “Excuses,” Nina said sharply. “That's all. Excuses for being bad people who are making a mockery of history.”

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, she could see a third figure standing by the hotel room door. They were either guarding that spot to make sure Nina didn't try to escape or to keep anyone from coming in and interrupting this charming conversation. Either way, it wasn't good.

  Nina was also starting to get a better look at the stone faces that were being used as masks. She recognized all three faces from actual statues that she had seen. They were recreations of faces that had been watching over museums for years. Each one of those masks was the face of a long-dead emperor of Ancient Rome—most would say, the three worst emperors.

  The man at the foot of her bed had the face of Nero. The one threatening to skewer Riley was wearing the ugly mug of Commodus, and the woman by the door looked a whole lot like Caligula.

  “You all look so familiar...odd that people wanting to restore Rome to greatness look a whole lot like men who helped ruin it. The Third Triumvirate...pfft. Caligula, Nero, and Commodus were too crazy and preoccupied with their own insanity to actually improve Rome at all. Strange choices to pick as the faces of your operation. I'm just saying...”

  Mr. Nero didn't say anything for a long moment. The big one, Mr. Commodus, was waiting for orders but his body language looked a bit impatient. The woman by the door stepped toward the bed.

  “Don't do anything you'll regret,” Miss Caligula said to Mr. Nero. She then turned her still gaze to Nina. “Believe it or not...we need you. Far more than that fool at the museum does. You can find what we can't. You can find Caesar's sword, can't you? All we ask is that when you do, you give it to us. It would be a waste to just put it behind glass in some exhibit. A big waste.”

  “Why not just let me bring it back to the museum? You lot all love to steal things from them anyway. You can just grab it when I'm done with it...just like all of the other things that you’ve taken.”

  “Caesar's sword is special. It's different. We can't just let a museum have their way with it. They will lock it up real tight for years, where we’d never be able to get to it.”

  “Why take the antiques from all of those museums? What's stealing going to do to help restore the old Rome?”

  “The things we took are reminders. They’ll make everyone remember how great we once were. They’ll show people how Rome flourished and spread its greatness to the rest of the world.”

  It was just like that letter that Elijah had read aloud. These people were delusional, trying their hardest to paint themselves as saviors.

  “That’s some great revision of history. Rome stretched itself too thin and collapsed under its own weight. It wasn't the perfect utopia that you're pretending it was. Check your facts and do some real research next time before looking for an excuse to cause some chaos.”

  Mr. Nero was silent again for a long time. He leaned in close, until his masked face was right up to Nina's ear.

  “You’ll bring us Caesar's sword,” Mr. Nero whispered. “If you don't, we’ll have no choice but to execute more of your friends. You’ll all be marked as enemies of the Empire!”

  She didn't know what he meant by more of her friends. All of her friends were still alive as far as she knew.

  “Don't fail us,” Miss Caligula said coldly from where she stood.

  Mr. Commodus stepped away from Riley's bed and joined the others by Nina's. All three of the masked figures loomed over her threateningly. She knew that if they wanted to kill her right then, there wouldn't be any way of stopping them. But they apparently needed her.

  The three each calmly left the room one at a time until the Triumvirate was gone.

  Nina almost broke down from sheer panic but just barely managed to keep it together.

  Part of her wanted to wake Riley up and tell her what happened. She wanted to run over to the next room, throw Elijah and August out of bed, and warn them too. Maybe August could barrel down the hotel halls like a one-man stampede and take all three of those masked demons down?

  She wanted to scream—but she stopped herself. What good was it to make her whole team panic? The Third Triumvirate knew where they were. They sneaked into the room and right up to them silently, without even the slightest bit of warning. Those three could have murdered Nina's entire group with ease if they really wanted to...but they didn't. They held all of the power, so telling the others about the Triumvirate's visit would just freak them all out.

  Even if she didn't feel like it, she was the leader and it was her responsibility to do what was best for the team. She preferred that everyone try to focus on finding the sword of Caesar. They could worry about those lunatics' threats later. The Third Triumvirate wanted the sword too, so their presence didn't matter until after they found the sword. They probably wouldn't strike until then at least.

  Nina spent the rest of the long night staring at the ceiling. It was hard to sleep when all she could picture was seeing another stone face looming over her bedside again. They’d gotten in before without her noticing. They could probably do the same thing again? She didn't dare sleep, terrified of what could be waiting for her whenever she woke up.

  She tried to push those thoughts and images out of her mind, or at least focus on the positives. She was alive, she was fine, and she was still looking for the sword of Caesar, just like she’d been before the Third Triumvirate came to threaten her in the middle of the night. She was still baffled that their trio went so far as to wear masks of the worst Roman emperors in history.

  She was even more baffled that Riley had slept through that whole ordeal. She must have been one of the heaviest sleepers to ever live. Nina had no idea how close she had been to being skewered by a big man in a mask.

  No. Her team didn't need that extra worry; for now, they just needed to worry about finding the sword. It took a long time—maybe hours—but Nina's eyes drifted closed and she fell asleep, but her last thoughts were fearful ones of stone faces in the dark.

  10

  THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

  Nina woke up the next morning, glad to be alive but couldn't stop thinking about her late night visit. She would have to warn Santino that those Third Triumvirate people were interested in the sword too. It was early morning and Riley was still fast asleep, as comfortable as she had been during the threat to her life. Nina didn't need the rest of the team to come with her to the Palazza Nuovo. She didn't expect that it would be too long of a conversation with Santino, and she didn't anticipate many threats so there was no need to bring August to help fend off any enemies.

  Nina returned to the Palazza Nuovo bright and early the following morning as discussed. The plan was to get Santino up to date on everything they had learned in Egypt. Once he was debriefed, they would come up with possible locations to scout out next.

  Commodus wasn't an emperor she was overly familiar with from her former studies. She knew the broad strokes about him but mainly, she just knew the version of him that Joaquin Phoenix played in the film, Gladiator, and that movie wasn't exactly historically accurate. It definitely wasn't the source that she would want to use when conducting a new plan. That's why she needed Santino. Roman history was not only his specialty, it was his whole life. She was sure that Santino would be able to give her some much needed insight into the real history of Commodus. And with that knowledge, maybe they could figure out where the emperor would have put Caesar's sword?

  She walked up to the museum's door and knocked. It was hour before the museum opened but she still expected Santino to greet her at the door, but no one came. She tried not to worry. It was very early, so he might not have even been in there yet. She gave the door another hard knock in case he hadn't heard her first but when she did, the entrance gently swayed open.

  That was nice of him to leave the door open for her. She let herself in and strolle
d through the museum. The morning sun spilled light through the windows and gave everything inside an ethereal glow. Even the weaponry and armaments seemed softer somehow. For a brief second, everything seemed warm and hopeful, but then she saw Santino.

  He was on the floor in the room with the mannequins she’d seen during her initial visit. Unlike then, they weren't positioned perfectly in a testudo formation like the Roman soldiers of old. No, the majority of them were sprawled about the floor. Their fake weapons were beside them, like they’d been disarmed before their defeats. It was a sad display, like she was seeing the aftermath of a battle; nothing made it seem more like that than Santino. He was the only body in the room that had actually ever breathed, but now he was just as lifeless as the rest.

  Santino was lying on his back and surrounded by a puddle of blood. Nina rushed over to him but immediately, she knew it was far too late to save him. She was looking at a corpse. She could tell just at first glance that he was killed from multiple stab wounds to the chest.

  There was a paper on top of him and she had a hunch of who the author was. She’d seen a letter like that before, in that very same museum.

  The Third Triumvirate did this.

  She looked down at the new letter. It was resting on the museum manager's body. His well-kept suit was stained blood red and his face was contorted in pain. It hadn't been a quick death, that was for sure. She felt a bit bad. Santino had never been one of her favorite people and she certainly wouldn't consider herself a fan, but he didn't deserve this.

  Nina looked the letter over. She knew it was tampering with a crime scene but the police had failed to do anything about the Third Triumvirate so far. She would probably have better luck with any evidence than the police would have. She read the letter silently to herself.

  The enemies of Rome will be struck down at once. We will not tolerate treachery or sabotage. We will not tolerate defiance. We will not tolerate rebellion. In order of the great empire to be brought back as it once was, extreme measures will have to be taken. There will be no quarter given to anyone that does not stand with us.