The Venetian Betrayal (Cotton Malone #3)

The Venetian Betrayal (Cotton Malone #3) Page 10

TWENTY-SIX

VENICE

8:45 P.M.

VINCENTI PAID THE WATER TAXI, THEN HOISTED HIMSELF UP TO street level and marched into the San Silva, one of Venice 's premier hotels. No weekend specials or cut-rate promotions applied here, just forty-two luxurious suites overlooking the Grand Canal in what was once the home of a Doge. Its grand lobby reflected old-world decadence. Roman columns, veined-marble, museum-quality accessories-the spacious surroundings busy with people, activity, and noise.

Peter O'Conner waited patiently in a quiet alcove. O'Conner wasn't ex-military or ex-government intelligence-just a man with a talent for gathering information coupled with a conscience that barely existed.

Philogen Pharmaceutique spent millions annually on an extensive array of in-house security to protect trade secrets and patents, but O'Conner reported directly to Vincenti-a set of personal eyes and ears providing the indispensable luxury of being able to implement whatever was needed to protect his interests.

And he was glad to have him.

Five years ago it was O'Conner who stopped a rebellion among a sizable block of Philogen stockholders over Vincenti's decision to expand the company further into Asia. Three years ago, when an American pharmaceutical giant tried a hostile takeover, O'Conner terrorized enough shareholders to prevent any wholesale stock ditching. And, just recently, when Vincenti faced a challenge from his board of directors, O'Conner discovered the dirt used to blackmail enough votes that Vincenti managed not only to keep his job as CEO, but was also reelected chairman.

Vincenti settled into a tooled-leather armchair. A quick glance at the clock etched into the marble behind the concierge's counter confirmed that he needed to be at the restaurant by nine fifteen. As soon as he was comfortable, O'Conner handed him some stapled sheets and said, "That's what we have so far."

He quickly scanned the transcripts of telephone calls and face-to-face discussions-all from listening devices monitoring Irina Zovastina. When finished, he asked, "She's after these elephant medallions?"

"Our surveillance," O'Conner said, "has been enough to know she has sent some of her personal guards after these medallions. The head guy himself, Viktor Tomas, is leading one team. Another team went to Amsterdam. They've been burning buildings all over Europe to mask those thefts."

Vincenti knew all about Zovastina's Sacred Band. More of her obsession with all things Greek. "Do they have the medallions?"

"At least four. They went after two yesterday, but I haven't heard the results."

He was puzzled. "We need to know what she's doing."

"I'm on it. I've managed to bribe a few of the palace staff. Unfortunately, electronic surveillance only works when she stays put. She's constantly on the move. She flew to the China lab earlier."

He'd already been told of the visit by his chief scientist, Grant Lyndsey.

"You should have seen her with that assassination attempt," O'Conner said. "Rode straight toward the gunman, daring him to shoot. We watched on a long-range camera. Of course, she had a sharpshooter on the palace ready to take the guy down. But still, to ride straight for him. You sure there's not a set of nuts between her legs?"

He chuckled. "I'm not going to look."

"That woman's crazy."

Which was why Vincenti had changed his mind with the Florentine. The Council of Ten had collectively ordered some preliminary investigative work on the possibility that Zovastina might have to be eliminated, and the Florentine had been contracted to perform that reconnaissance. Vincenti had initially decided to make use of the Florentine in a full-scale rush to judgment, since to accomplish what he privately planned Zovastina had to go. So he'd promised the Florentine a huge profit if he could have her killed.

Then a better idea blossomed.

If he revealed the planned assassination, that might quell any fears Zovastina harbored about the League's trustworthiness. Which would buy him time to prepare something better-something he'd actually been conceiving over the past few weeks. More subtle. Less residuals.

"She also visited the house again," O'Conner told him. "A little while ago. Slipped out of the palace, alone, in a car. Tree-mounted cameras caught the visit. She stayed a half hour."

"Do we know her former lover's current condition?"

"Holding her own. We listened to their conversation with a parabolic monitor from a nearby house. A strange pair. Love/hate thing going on."

He'd found it interesting that a woman who'd managed to govern with unfettered ruthlessness harbored such an obsession. She'd been married for a few years, the man a midlevel diplomat in the former Kazakhstan 's foreign service. Surely a marriage for appearance's sake. A way to mask her questionable sexuality. Yet the reports he'd amassed noted an amicable husband/wife relationship. He died suddenly in a car crash seventeen years ago, just after she became Kazakhstan 's president, and a couple of years before she managed to forge the Federation. Karyn Walde came along a few years later and remained Zovastina's only long-lasting interpersonal relationship, which ended badly. Yet a year ago, when the woman reappeared, Zovastina had immediately taken her in and arranged, through Vincenti, for needed HIV medications.

"Should we act?" he asked.

O'Conner nodded. "Wait any longer and it might be too late."

"Arrange it. I'll be in the Federation by week's end."

"Could get messy."

"Whatever. Just no fingerprints. Nothing that links anything to me."

TWENTY-SEVEN

AMSTERDAM

9:20 P.M.

STEPHANIE HAD EXPERIENCED THE INSIDE OF A DANISH JAIL LAST summer when she and Malone were arrested. Now she'd visited a Dutch cell. Not much different. Wisely, she'd kept her mouth shut as the police rushed onto the bridge and spotted the dead man. Both Secret Service agents had managed to escape, and she hoped the one in the water had retrieved the medallion. Her suspicions, though, were now confirmed. Cassiopeia and Thorvaldsen were into something, and it wasn't ancient coin collecting.

The door to the holding cell opened and a thin man in his early sixties, with a long, sharp face and bushy silver hair, entered. Edwin Davis. Deputy national security adviser to the president. The man who replaced the late Larry Daley. And what a change. Davis had been brought over from State, a career man, possessed of two doctorates-one in American history, the other international relations-along with superb organizational skills and an innate diplomatic ability. He employed a courteous, folksy way, similar to that of President Daniels himself, that people tended to underestimate. Three secretaries of state had used him to whip their ailing departments into line. Now he worked at the White House, helping the administration finish out the last three years of its second term.

"I was having dinner with the president. In The Hague. What a place, by the way. Enjoying the evening. Food was superb, and I usually don't care for gourmet. They brought me a note that told me where you were and I said to myself, there has to be a logical explanation why Stephanie Nelle would be in Dutch custody, found with a gun beside a dead man in the rain."

She opened her mouth to speak and he held up a halting hand.

"It gets better."

She sat quietly in her wet clothes.

"As I was deciding how I could actually leave you here, since I was reasonably sure I did not want to know why you came to Amsterdam, the president himself took me aside and told me to get over here. Seems two Secret Service agents were also involved, but they weren't in custody. One of them was soaking wet from swimming in a canal to retrieve this."

She caught what he tossed her and saw again the medallion with elephants, snug in its plastic sleeve.

"The president intervened with the Dutch. You're free to go."

She stood. "Before we leave I need to know about those dead men."

"Since I already knew you'd say that, I found out that they both carried Central Asian Federation passports. We checked. Part of Supreme Minister Irina Zovastina's personal security force."

She caught something in his eye. Davis was much easier to read than Daley had been. "That doesn't shock you."

"Few things do anymore." His voice had lowered to a whisper. "We have a problem, Stephanie, and now, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, you're part of it."

She followed Davis into the hotel suite. President Danny Daniels sat sprawled on a sofa, wrapped in a bathrobe, his bare feet propped on a gilded glass-topped table. He was a tall stretch of a man with piles of blond hair, a booming voice, and a disarming manner. Though she'd worked for him for five years, she'd only come to really know him last fall with the treachery surrounding the lost library of Alexandria. He'd then both fired and rehired her. Daniels held a drink of something in one hand and a remote control in the other.

"There's not a damn thing on this TV to watch that isn't subtitled or in a language I don't understand. And I can't bear that BBC News or CNN International any longer. They show the same stories over and over." Daniels blackened the screen and tossed the remote aside. He sipped from his drink, then said to her, "I hear you've had another career-ending night."

She caught the twinkle in his eye. "Seems to be my path to success."

He motioned and she sat. Davis stood off to the side.

"I've got some more bad news," Daniels said. "Your agent in Venice is missing. She's not been heard from in twelve hours. Neighbors in the building where she was stationed reported a disturbance early this morning. Four men. A door kicked in. Of course, no one now officially saw anything. Typical Italians." He raised one arm in a flurry. "For God's sake don't involve me." The president paused, his face darkened. "Nothing about this sounds good."

Stephanie had loaned Naomi Johns to the White House, which needed some field reconnaissance on a person-of-interest-Enrico Vincenti, an international financier with ties to an organization called the Venetian League. She knew the group. Another of the countless cartels from around the world. Naomi worked for Stephanie for many years, and had been the agent who'd investigated Larry Daley. She'd left the Billet last year, only to return, and Stephanie had been glad. Naomi was good. The recon job should have been low risk. Just record meets and greets. Stephanie had even told her to take a couple of days off in Italy when she finished.

Now she might be dead.

"When I loaned her out, your people said this was simply information gathering."

No one answered and her gaze shifted between the two men.

Daniels pointed. "Where's the medallion?"

She handed it to him.

"You want to tell me about this?"

She felt grimy. What she wanted was a shower and sleep, but she realized that wasn't going to happen. She resented being interrogated, but he was the president of the United States and had saved her hide, so she explained about Cassiopeia, Thorvaldsen, and the favor. The president listened with an unusual attentiveness, then said, "Tell her, Edwin."

"How much do you know about Supreme Minister Zovastina?"

"Enough to know that she's no friend of ours."

Her tired mind retrieved Zovastina's pertinent history. Born to a working-class family in northern Kazakhstan, her father died fighting the Nazis for Stalin, then an earthquake, just after the war, killed her mother and the rest of her immediate relatives. She grew up in an orphanage, until one of her mother's distant cousins took her in. She eventually became an economist, trained at the Leningrad Institute, then joined the Communist Party in her twenties and worked her way to head of the local Committee of the Representatives of the Workers. She then snagged a spot on the Central Committee of Kazakhstan and quickly rose to the Supreme Soviet. She first promoted land and other economic reforms, then became a critic of Moscow. After independence from Russia, she was one of six Party members who ran for president of Kazakhstan. When the two front-runners failed to receive a majority, under the national constitution both were disqualified from the second round of voting, which she won.

"I learned a long time ago," Daniels said, "that if you have to tell someone you're their friend, the relationship's got big problems. This woman thinks we're a bunch of idiots. Friends like her we don't need."

"But you still have to kiss her ass."

Daniels enjoyed more of his drink. "Unfortunately."

"The Central Asian Federation is not something to take lightly," Davis made clear. "Land of hardy people and long memories. Twenty-eight million men and women available for military conscription. Twenty-two million of those fit and ready for service. About one and a half million new conscripts available each year. That's quite a fighting force. Currently, the Federation spends one point two billion dollars a year on defense, but that doesn't count what we pour in there, which is twice that.

"And the real crap," Daniels continued, "is that the people love her. The standard of living has improved a thousandfold. Before her, sixty-four percent lived in poverty. Now it's less than fifteen percent. That's as good as we do. She's investing everywhere. Hydroelectric power, cotton, gold-she's loaded with surpluses. That Federation is perched in a superb geoeconomic position. Russia, China, India. Smack between them all. Smart lady, too. She's sitting on some of the world's largest oil and natural gas reserves, which the Russians once totally controlled. They're still pissed about independence, so she made a deal and sells them oil and gas at below-market prices, which keeps Moscow off her tail."

She was impressed with Daniels' command of the region.

"Then," the president said, "a few years ago she entered into a long-term lease with Russia on the Baykonur Cosmodrome. The Russian spaceport sits in the middle of the old Kazakhstan. Six thousand square miles, which Russia now has exclusive use of until 2050. In return, of course, she got some debt cancellation. After that, she stroked the Chinese by settling a centuries-old border dispute. Not bad for an economist who grew up in an orphanage."

"Do we have problems with Zovastina?" she asked. Again neither man answered her question, so she switched gears. "What does Enrico Vincenti have to do with this?"

"Zovastina and Vincenti are connected," Daniels said, "through the Venetian League. Both are members. Four hundred and some people. Lots of money, time, and ambition, but the League isn't interested in changing the world-only being left alone. They hate government, restrictive laws, tariffs, taxes, me, anything that keeps them in line. They have their hands in lots of countries-"

She saw that Daniels had read her thoughts.

The president shook his head. "Not here. Not like last time. We've checked. Nothing. The Central Asian Federation is their main concern."

Davis said, "All of the stans were heavy with foreign debt from their Soviet domination and tries at independence. Zovastina has managed to renegotiate those obligations with the various government creditors and a large chunk of that debt has been forgiven. But an influx of new capital would help. Nothing quells progress more than long-term debt." He paused. "There's three point six billion dollars on deposit in a variety of banks across the globe, traced to Venetian League members."

"An ante in a huge poker game," Daniels said.

She realized the significance, since presidents were not prone to sound an alert based on flimsy suspicion. "Which is about to play out?"

Daniels nodded. "So far, corporations organized under Central Asian Federation law have acquired, or taken over, nearly eighty companies around the world. Pharmaceuticals, information technology, automobile and truck manufacturing, and telecommunications are just a few of the areas. Get this, they even acquired the world's largest producer of tea bags. Goldman Sachs predicts that, if this continues, the Federation could well become the third or fourth largest economy in the world, behind us, China, and India."

"It's alarming," Davis noted. "Particularly since it's happening with little or no fanfare. Usually, corporations like to play up their acquisitions. Not here. Everything is being kept close."

Daniels motioned with one arm. "Zovastina needs a consistent capital flow to keep the wheels of her government turning. We have taxes, she has the League. The Federation is rich in cotton, gold, uranium, silver, copper, lead, zinc-"

"And opium," she finished.

"Zovastina," Davis said, "has even helped with that. The Federation is now third, worldwide, for opiates seizure. She's shut down that region for trafficking, which makes the Europeans love her. Can't speak ill about her at all across the Atlantic. Of course, she peddles cheap oil and gas to a lot of them, too."

"You realize," she said, "that Naomi is probably dead because of all this." The thought turned her stomach. Losing an agent was the worst thing she could imagine. Luckily, it rarely happened. But when it did, she always had to fight a disturbing mixture of anger and patience.

"We realize that," Davis said. "And it won't go unpunished."

"She and Cotton Malone were close. They worked together at the Billet many times. A good team. He'll be upset to hear."

"Which is another reason why you're here," the president said. "A few hours ago Cotton was involved in a fire at a Greco-Roman museum in Copenhagen. Henrik Thorvaldsen owned the place and Cassiopeia Vitt helped him escape the blaze."

"You seem up on things."

"Part of my job description, though I'm coming to dislike this part more and more." Daniels gestured with the medallion. "One of these was in that museum."

She recalled what Klaus Dyhr had said. Only eight.

Davis pointed a long finger at the coin. "It's called an elephant medallion."

"Important?" she asked.

"Apparently so," Daniels said. "But we need your help to learn more."

TWENTY-EIGHT

COPENHAGEN

MONDAY, APRIL 20

12:40 A.M.

MALONE GRABBED A BLANKET AND HEADED FOR THE SOFA IN THE other room. After the fire last fall, during rebuilding he'd eliminated several of the apartment walls and rearranged others, adjusting the layout so that the fourth floor of his bookshop was now a more practical living space.

"I like the furniture," Cassiopeia said. "Fits you."

He'd opted away from Danish simplicity and ordered everything from London. A sofa, some chairs, tables, and lamps. Lots of wood and leather, warm and comfortable. He'd noticed that little ever changed in the decor unless another book found its way up from the ground floor or another picture of Gary arrived by e-mail and was added to the growing collection. He'd suggested Cassiopeia sleep here, in town, as opposed to driving back to Christiangade with Thorvaldsen, and she'd not argued. During dinner, he'd listened to their various explanations, mindful that Cassiopeia possessed a judgment-affecting personal stake in whatever was happening.

Which wasn't good.

He'd recently been there himself, when Gary had been threatened.

She sat on the edge of his bed. Lamps long on charm but short on strength illuminated mustard-colored walls. "Henrik says I may need your help."

"You don't agree?"

"I'm not sure you do."

"Did you love Ely?"

He was surprised at himself for asking and she did not immediately answer.

"Hard to say."

Not an answer. "He must have been pretty special."

"Ely was extraordinary. Smart. Alive. Funny. When he discovered those lost texts, you should have seen him. You would have thought he just found a new continent."

"How long did you see each other?"

"Off and on for three years."

Her eyes drifted again, like while the museum burned. They were so alike. Both of them masked feelings. But everyone had a limit. He was still dealing with the realization that Gary was not his natural son-the product of an affair his ex-wife had long ago. A picture of the boy rested on one of the nightstands and his gaze shot toward it. He'd determined that genes didn't matter. The boy was still his son, and he and his ex-wife had made their peace. Cassiopeia, though, seemed to be wrestling with her demon. Bluntness seemed in order. "What are you trying to do?"

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."