The Venetian Betrayal (Cotton Malone #3)

The Venetian Betrayal (Cotton Malone #3) Page 8

TWENTY

XINYANG PROVINCE, CHINA

3:30 P.M.

ZOVASTINA SAT STRAPPED INTO HER SEAT IN THE HELICOPTER'S rear compartment. Usually she traveled by a more luxurious method, but today she'd used the faster, military-issue chopper. One of her Sacred Band piloted the craft. Half of her personal guard, including Viktor, were licensed pilots. She sat across from the female prisoner from the laboratory, another of her guard beside the woman. She'd been brought aboard handcuffed, but Zovastina had ordered them removed.

"What's your name?" she asked the woman.

"Does it matter?"

They spoke through headsets in Khask, which she knew none of the foreigners aboard understood.

"How do you feel?"

The woman hesitated before answering, as if debating whether to lie. "The best I've felt in years."

"I'm glad. It's our goal to improve the lives of all our citizens. Perhaps when you're released from prison, you'll have a greater appreciation for our new society."

A look of contempt formed on the woman's pitted face. Nothing about her was attractive, and Zovastina wondered how many defeats had been needed to strip her of all self-respect.

"I doubt I'll be a part of your new society, Minister. My sentence is long."

"I'm told you were involved in the trafficking of cocaine. If the Soviets were still here, you would have been executed."

"The Russians?" She laughed. "They were the ones who bought the drugs."

She wasn't surprised. "The way of our new world."

"What happened to the others who came with me?"

She decided to be honest. "Dead."

Though this woman was surely accustomed to difficulties, she noticed an unease. Understandable, really. Here she was, aboard a helicopter with the Supreme Minister of the Central Asian Federation, after being whisked from prison and subjected to some unknown medical test, of which she was the only survivor. "I'll make sure your sentence is reduced. Though you may not appreciate us, the Federation appreciates your assistance."

"Am I supposed to be grateful?"

"You volunteered."

"I don't recall anyone saying I had a choice."

She glanced out the window at the silent peaks of the Pamirs, which signaled the border and friendly territory. She caught the woman's gaze. "Don't you want to be a part of what's about to happen?"

"I want to be free."

Something from her university years, what Sergej had said long ago, flashed through her mind. Anger seemed always directed at individuals-hatred preferred classes. Time cured anger, but never hatred. So she asked, "Why do you hate?"

The woman studied her with a blank expression. "I should have been one of those who died."

"Why?"

"Your prisons are nasty places, from which few emerge."

"As they should be, to discourage anyone from wanting to be there."

"Many have no choice." The woman paused. "Unlike you, Supreme Minister."

The bastion of mountains grew larger in the window. "Centuries ago Greeks came east and changed the world. Did you know that? They conquered Asia. Changed our culture. Now Asians are about to go west and do the same. You're helping to make it possible."

"I care nothing about your plans."

"My name, Irina-Eirene in Greek-means peace. That's what we seek."

"And killing prisoners will bring this peace?"

This woman cared not about destiny. Zovastina's entire life had seemed destined. So far, she'd forged a new political order-just as Alexander had done. Another lesson from Sergej spoke loudly. Remember, Irina, what Arrian said of Alexander. He was always the rival of his own self. Only in the past few years had she come to understand that malady. She stared at the woman who'd ruined her life over a few thousand rubles.

"Ever heard of Menander?"

"Why don't you tell me?"

"He was a Greek playwright from the fourth century BCE. He wrote comedies."

"I prefer tragedies."

She was tiring of this defeatism. Not everyone could be changed. Unlike Colonel Enver, who'd earlier seen the possibilities she'd offered and willingly become a convert. Men like him would be useful in the years ahead, but this pitiful soul represented nothing but failure.

"Menander wrote something I've always found to be true. If you want to live your whole life free from pain, you must either be a god or a corpse."

She reached across and unsnapped the woman's harness. The guardsman, sitting beside the prisoner, wrenched open the cabin door. The woman seemed momentarily stunned by the bitter air and the engine roar that rushed inside.

"I'm a god," Zovastina said. "You're a corpse."

The guard ripped off the woman's headset, who apparently realized what was about to happen and started to resist.

But he shoved her out the door.

Zovastina watched as the body tumbled through the crystalline air, vanishing into the peaks below.

The guard slammed the cabin door shut and the helicopter kept flying west back to Samarkand.

For the first time since this morning, she felt satisfied.

Everything was now in place.

PART TWO

TWENTY-ONE

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

7:30 P.M.

STEPHANIE NELLE SCRAMBLED OUT OF THE CAB AND QUICKLY jerked up the hood of her overcoat. An April rain poured down and water puddled between the rough cobbles, furiously streaming toward the city canals. The source, a nasty storm that had blown in earlier off the North Sea, now lay hidden behind indigo clouds, but a steady drizzle remained visible within the penumbra of streetlamps.

She pushed through the rain, stuffing bare hands into coat pockets. She crossed an arched pedestrian bridge, entered the Rembrandtplein, and noticed that the torrid evening had not dampened the crowds at the peep shows, pickup clubs, gay bars, and striptease outlets.

Farther into the bowels of the red-light district, she passed brothels, their plate-glass windows littered with girls promising fulfillment with leather and lace. In one, an Asian woman, dressed in tight bondage gear, sat on a padded seat and flipped through the pages of a magazine.

Stephanie had been told that night was not the most threatening time for a visit to the renowned district. The morning desperation of passing junkies and the early-afternoon edginess of pimps waiting for the evening's business were usually more intense. But she'd been warned that the northern end, near the Nieuwmarkt, in an area just beyond the crowds, constantly exuded a quiet sense of menace. So she was on guard as she breached the invisible line and entered. Her eyes shot back and forth, like a prowling cat's, her course set straight for the cafe at the far end of the street.

The Jan Heuval occupied the ground floor of a three-story warehouse. A brown cafe, one of hundreds that dotted the Rembrandtplein. She shoved open the front door and immediately noticed the aroma of burning cannabis along with the absence of any "No Drugs Please" sign.

The cafe was jammed, its warm air saturated with a hallucinogenic fog scented like singed rope. The aroma of fried fish and roasted chestnuts mixed with the intoxicating waft and her eyes burned. She pushed back the hood and shook rain onto the foyer's already damp tiles.

Then she spotted Klaus Dyhr. Mid-thirties, blond-haired, pale, weathered face-exactly as he'd been described.

Not for the first time, she reminded herself why she was here. Returning a favor. Cassiopeia Vitt had asked her to contact Dyhr. And since she owed her friend at least one favor, she could hardly refuse the request. Before making contact she'd run a check and learned that Dyhr was Dutch born, German educated, and practiced chemistry for a local plastics manufacturer. His obsession was coin collecting-he supposedly possessed an impressive array-and one in particular had drawn the interest of her Muslim friend.

The Dutchman stood alone near a chest-high table, nursing a brown beer and munching fried fish. A rolled cigarette burned in an ashtray and the thick green fog curling upward was not from tobacco.

"I'm Stephanie Nelle," she said in English. "The woman who called."

"You said you were interested in buying."

She caught the curt tone that said, "Tell me what you want, pay me, and I'll be on my way." She also noticed his glassy eyes, which almost couldn't be helped. Even she was starting to feel a buzz. "Like I said on the phone, I want the elephant medallion."

He gulped a swallow of beer. "Why? It's of no consequence. I have many other coins worth much more. Good prices."

"I'm sure you do. But I want the medallion. You said it was for sale."

"I said it depends on what you want to pay."

"Can I see it?"

Klaus reached into his pocket. She accepted the offering and studied the oblong medallion through a plastic sleeve. A warrior on one side, a mounted war elephant challenging a horseman on the other. About the size of a fifty-cent piece, the images nearly eroded away.

"You know nothing of what that is, do you?" Klaus asked.

She decided to be honest. "I'm doing this for someone else."

"I want six thousand euros."

Cassiopeia had told her to pay whatever. Price was irrelevant. But staring at the sheaved piece, she wondered why something so nondescript would be so important.

"There are only eight known," he said. "Six thousand euros is a bargain."

"Only eight? Why sell it?"

He fingered the burning butt, sucked a deep drag, held it, then slowly whistled out thick smoke. "I need the money." His oily eyes returned their gaze downward, staring toward his beer.

"Things that bad?" she asked.

"You sound like you care."

Two men flanked Klaus. One was fair, the other tanned. Their faces and features were a conflicting mixture of Arab and Asian. Rain continued to pour outside, but the men's coats were dry. Fair grabbed Klaus's arm and a knife blade was pressed flat to the man's stomach. Tan wrapped an arm around her in a seemingly friendly embrace and brought the tip of another knife close to her ribs, pressing the blade into her coat.

"The medallion," Fair said, motioning with his head. "On the table."

She decided not to argue and calmly did as he asked.

"We'll be leaving now," Tan said, pocketing the coin. His breath stank of beer. "Stay here."

She had no intention of challenging them. She knew to respect weapons pointed at her.

The men wove their way to the front door and left the cafe.

"They took my coin," Klaus said, his voice rising. "I'm going after them."

She couldn't decide if it was foolishness or the drugs talking. "How about you let me handle it."

He appraised her with a suspicious gaze.

"I assure you," she said. "I came prepared."

TWENTY-TWO

COPENHAGEN

7:45 P.M.

MALONE FINISHED HIS DINNER. HE WAS SITTING INSIDE THE CAFe Norden, a two-story restaurant that faced into the heart of Højbro Plads. The evening had turned nasty with a brisk April shower dousing the nearly empty city square. He sat high and dry by an open window, on the upper floor, and enjoyed the rain.

"I appreciate you helping out today," Thorvaldsen said from across the table.

"Almost getting blown up? Twice? What are friends for?"

He finished the last of his tomato bisque soup. The cafe offered some of the best he'd ever eaten. He was full of questions, but realized answers, as always with Thorvaldsen, would be apportioned sparingly. "Back at that house, you and Cassiopeia talked about Alexander the Great's body. That you know where it is. How's that possible?"

"We've managed to learn a lot on the subject."

"Cassiopeia's friend at the museum in Samarkand?"

"More than a friend, Cotton."

He'd surmised as much. "Who was he?"

"Ely Lund. He grew up here, in Copenhagen. He and my son, Cai, were friends."

Malone caught the sadness when Thorvaldsen mentioned his dead son. His stomach also flip-flopped at the thought of that day two years ago, in Mexico City, when the young man was murdered. Malone had been there, on a Magellan Billet assignment, and brought down the shooters, but a bullet had found him, too. Losing a son. He couldn't imagine Gary, his own fifteen-year-old, dying.

"Whereas Cai wanted to serve in government, Ely loved history. He earned a doctorate and became an expert on Greek antiquity, working in several European museums before ending up in Samarkand. The cultural museum there has a superb collection, and the Central Asian Federation offered encouragements to science and art."

"How did Cassiopeia meet him?"

"I introduced them. Three years ago. Thought it would be good for them both."

He sipped his drink. "What happened?"

"He died. A little less than two months ago. She took it hard."

"She love him?"

Thorvaldsen shrugged. "Hard to say with her. Rarely do her emotions surface."

But they had earlier. Her sadness watching the museum burn. The distant stare out over the canal. Her refusal to meet his gaze. Nothing voiced. Only felt.

When they'd docked the motorboat at Christiangade, Malone had wanted answers, but Thorvaldsen had promised that over dinner all would be explained. So he'd been driven back to Copenhagen, slept a little, then worked in the bookstore the remainder of the day. A couple of times he drifted into the history section and found a few volumes on Alexander and Greece. But mainly he wondered what Thorvaldsen had meant by Cassiopeia needs your help.

Now he was beginning to understand.

Out the open window, across the square, he spotted Cassiopeia leaving his bookshop, dashing through the rain, something wrapped in a plastic bag tucked beneath one arm. Thirty minutes ago he'd given her the key to the store so she could use his computer and phone.

"Finding Alexander's body," Thorvaldsen said, "centers on Ely and the manuscript pages he uncovered. Ely initially asked Cassiopeia to locate the elephant medallions. But when we started to track them down, we discovered someone else was already looking."

"How did Ely connect the medallions to the manuscript?"

"He examined the one in Samarkand and found the microletters. ZH. They have a connection to the manuscript. After Ely died, Cassiopeia wanted to know what was happening."

"So she came to you for help?"

Thorvaldsen nodded. "I couldn't refuse."

He smiled. How many friends would buy an entire museum and duplicate everything inside just so it could burn to the ground?

Cassiopeia disappeared below the windowsill. He heard the cafe's main door below open and close, then footsteps climbing the metal stairway to the second floor.

"You've stayed wet a lot today," Malone said, as she reached the top.

Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, her jeans and pullover shirt splotched with rain. "Hard for a girl to look good."

"Not really."

She threw him a look. "A charmer tonight."

"I have my moments."

She removed his laptop from the plastic bag and said to Thorvaldsen, "I downloaded everything."

"If I'd known you were going to bring it over in the rain," Malone said, "I'd have insisted on a security deposit."

"You need to see this."

"I told him about Ely," Thorvaldsen said.

The dining room was dim and deserted. Malone ate here three or four times a week, always at the same table, near the same hour. He enjoyed the solitude.

Cassiopeia faced him.

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it.

"I appreciate that."

"I appreciate you saving my ass."

"You would have found a way out. I just sped things up."

He recalled his predicament and wasn't so sure about her conclusion.

He wanted to ask more about Ely Lund, curious as to how he'd managed to crack her emotional vault. Like his own, there were a multitude of locks and alarms. But he kept silent-as always when feelings were unavoidable.

Cassiopeia switched on the laptop and brought several scanned images onto the screen. Words. Ghostly gray, fuzzy in places, and all in Greek.

"About a week after Alexander the Great died, in 323 BCE," Cassiopeia said, "Egyptian embalmers arrived in Babylon. Though it was summer, hot as hell, they found his corpse uncorrupted, its complexion still lifelike. That was taken as a sign from the gods of Alexander's greatness."

He'd read about that earlier. "Some sign. He was probably still alive, in a terminal coma."

"That's the modern consensus. But that medical state was unknown then. So they went about their task and mummified the body."

He shook his head. "Amazing. The greatest conqueror of his time, killed by embalmers."

Cassiopeia smiled in agreement. "Mummification usually took seventy days, the idea being to dry the body beyond further decay. But with Alexander, they used a different method. He was immersed in white honey."

He knew about honey, a substance that did not rot. Time would crystallize, but never destroy, its basic composition, which could easily be reconstituted with heat.

"The honey," she said, "would have preserved Alexander, inside and out, better than mummification. The body was eventually wrapped in gold cartonnage, then placed into a golden sarcophagus, dressed in robes and a crown, surrounded by more honey. That's where it stayed, in Babylon, for a year, while a gem-encrusted carriage was built. Then a funeral cortege set off from Babylon."

"Which is when the funerary games began," he said.

Cassiopeia nodded. "In a manner of speaking. Perdiccas, one of Alexander's generals, called an emergency meeting of the Companions the day after Alexander died. Roxane, Alexander's Asian wife, was six months pregnant. Perdiccas wanted to wait for the birth then decide what to do. If the child was a boy, he would be the rightful heir. But others balked. They weren't going to have a part-barbarian monarch. They wanted Alexander's half brother, Philip, as their king, though the man was, by all accounts, mentally ill."

Malone recalled the details of what he'd read earlier. Fighting actually broke out around Alexander's deathbed. Perdiccas then called an assembly of Macedonians and, to keep order, placed Alexander's corpse in their midst. The assembly voted to abandon the planned Arabia campaign and approved a division of the empire. Governorships were doled out to the Companions. Rebellion quickly erupted as the generals fought among themselves. In late summer, Roxane gave birth to a boy, christened Alexander IV. To keep the peace, a joint arrangement was conceived whereby the child and Philip, the half brother, were deemed king, though the Companions governed their respective portions of the empire, unconcerned with either.

"What was it," Malone asked, "six years later when the half brother was murdered by Olympias, Alexander's mother? She'd hated that child from birth, since Philip of Macedonia had divorced her to marry the mother. Then, a few years later, Roxane and Alexander IV were both poisoned. None of them ever ruled anything."

"Eventually, Alexander's sister was murdered, too," Thorvaldsen said. "His entire bloodline eradicated. Not a single legitimate heir survived. And the greatest empire in the world crumbled away."

"So what does all that have to do with elephant medallions? And what possible relevance could that have today?"

"Ely believed a great deal," she said.

He saw there was more. "And what do you believe?"

She sat silent, as if unsure, but not wanting to voice her reservations.

"It's all right," he said. "You tell me when you're ready."

Then something else occurred to him and he said to Thorvaldsen, "What about the last two medallions here in Europe? I heard you ask Viktor about them. He's probably headed after those next."

"We're ahead of him there."

"Someone's already got them?"

Thorvaldsen glanced at his watch. "At least one, I hope, by now."