Michael White - The Medici secret

Mackenzie began to write some comments in a notebook. He listed what they already knew: the object's chemical structure, mass, density, dimensions. Then, putting down his pen, he picked up the stone rectangle and held it up to the light between latexed finger and thumb. With a jolt, he realised something about it had changed. Across what had been a featureless surface, faint green lines had begun to appear. They were changing and merging even as he stared. He reached for his loupe and looked closer. This was truly remarkable. A faint green outline was forming close to one end of the rectangle. Below this, he could just begin to see some letters, and two-thirds of the way down, a set of lines appeared.

'This is amazing,' he heard himself say. For a few seconds he wasn't quite sure what to do. Then, he grabbed the phone and quickly dialled a number. An answer machine came on. He dialled another number from memory. A second machine clicked on, and without hesitating, he began to describe what he could see on the face of the stone tablet.

Two minutes later, he was about to make some final remarks when he heard a bleep and knew he had used up the memory on the answer system. He replaced the phone and stared at the wall. What he had seen thrilled but also scared him. He had never been a superstitious man. He had been trained as a scientist, but he couldn't deny his deepest fears. This was merely the latest in a string of weird events and coincidences that he had spoken of to no one. By leaving this message, had he done enough? Or had he done too much? Had he placed others in terrible danger?

He heard a faint noise from the chamber beyond. He looked towards the plastic screen dividing the office from the burial chamber. Silence.

He placed the tablet back in the Petri dish and removed the loupe. It was at that precise moment he felt a sudden, intense pain in his neck. He sensed rather than saw someone leaning in towards him. His hands flew to his neck and felt the cold steel of a garrotte. His assailant twisted on the wire with incredible force.

The scientist's eyes bulged. Gasping for breath, he tried to pull away and at the same time to force his fingers beneath the garrotte. But it was utterly futile. A terrible pain roared through his head and he began to lose focus. His attacker was pulling him further and further back, slicing into his neck. For a fleeting moment, Mackenzie believed he could twist free, but the man behind him was far too strong. Mackenzie's sphincter opened and he voided himself; a foul smell rose from his seat. There was a tiny almost imperceptible crack as Mackenzie's trachea was sliced open and darkness closed about him.

Venice, present day Jeff Martin eased the cashmere of his sweater away from his neck and ran a hand over the light stubble on his chin. It had been too late to shave before leaving his apartment earlier that evening and, when he had caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror on the way out, he had thought he looked tired, his skin a bit blotchy, his longish, light brown hair a little lank and lifeless. Jeff's intense blue eyes still possessed something of their old sparkle, he had reassured himself, but it could not be denied, he had definitely looked better.

Gazing now around Harry's Bar, he reflected, not for the first time, on what had gone through the mind of Ernest Hemingway as he had taken in the same scene more than half a century earlier. 'You find everything on Earth at Harry's… except perhaps happiness.' The place never changed; neither, he thought, had those sentiments. The half-timbered walls were still the same shade of cream they had been when it was first opened in 1931. The waiters, handsome and elegant, wore the same uniform of black trousers, white bow ties and crisply starched white jackets. The menu was very similar, the layout of the bar unaltered, and the arrangement of tables and chairs in this modest room was identical to the design dreamed up by the founder, Giuseppe Cipriani, who had called it Harry's after a friend, Harry Pickering, put up the two hundred pounds needed to open the place. And Harry's still exuded the same aura of genteel melancholia it had possessed so long ago. 'Another?'

The question snapped Jeff out of his reverie. He looked at his friend, Visconte Roberto Armatovani and nodded. 'Why not?' They hadn't seen each other for some time. Roberto, a world-renowned musicologist, had been on a lecture tour of America. They had met earlier in the evening and enjoyed a hideously expensive dinner upstairs in the restaurant. Now they both felt a little overfull, but relaxed. The waiter was at the table and two more Bellinis were ordered almost immediately.

'So,' Roberto said. 'How's Rose taking to Venice?'

'Oh, very well. She's at a difficult age but she's become quite attached to dear old Maria. Which is a relief

Rose, the only child from his ill-fated marriage, was the best thing he had produced in his life. Jeff wished he could see more of her, but her mother, Imogen, the woman he had been married to for thirteen years and divorced from for two, seemed determined to cause him pain and trouble. This was Rose's first visit to his adopted home and he had been able to see her only a handful of times since the dissolution of his marriage. Rose lived with her mother at Hogsdown, a vast, frigid stately home in Gloucestershire that Imogen had inherited from her deceased parents. With a momentary stab of sadness, Jeff realised his fourteen-year-old daughter was almost a young woman and soon he'd be losing his baby girl for ever.

He took a sip of his Bellini. Placing it back on the table, he glanced at Roberto who was as relaxed as always, a man completely at home in his environment. He was in his perennial uniform of black jeans, black polo neck and black leather jacket. His salt and pepper hair was cut short and his thin face, almost black eyes and high cheekbones made him look far younger than his forty-four years. The two men had met five years ago. Roberto was an authority on early music and in particular the compositions of Palestrina, the sixteenth-century maestro who had been a favourite of Pope Julius III. But there was much more to Roberto. He was also an extraordinary polymath; a superb violinist; the author of a clutch of popular books on a variety of arcane subjects, and, what had most drawn Jeff to him, he was an expert in the history of Venice. Jeff had been on two archaeological digs with him and helped with some of the research for his latest book, an account of the early settlement of Venice in the fourth century.

For Roberto, all his endeavours were elaborate hobbies because he was heir to one of the largest and most ancient fortunes in Italy. The Armatovani family could trace their ancestry back to the thirteenth century and it included half a dozen doges, cardinals and numerous warlords and local aristocrats. Roberto was the youngest of four brothers and the only one to remain in Venice after his parents died. He lived in one of the few palazzos that had not been converted into sumptuous apartments or hotels.

'You going to tell me about your trip then, Roberto? I've been waiting for you to mention it all evening.'

'Oh God. To be honest, I'm so glad to be home I don't much care to think about it.' His English was pure Oxbridge. 'But it was… well… how shall I put it? An experience. I don't think they knew quite what to make of me. They believe that it's obligatory for European professors to wear tweed jackets and smoke pipes.'

They both laughed. 'What about the tour though? You knocked 'em dead no doubt.'

'Of course,' Roberto replied. 'They have some excellent young musicians. But what of you, Jeff? You're looking a bit run-down.' 'Oh, rubbish.' 'Is there something wrong?'

'Roberto, I'm fine. In fact, I'm more contented than I've been for a long time.'