Steve Berry - The Venetian Betrayal

“Is this the place?” Cassiopeia asked, looking out over his shoulder.

“This is Arima.”

“Damn quiet down there,” Malone said.

“The mountains shielded our approach,” Viktor pointed out. “Radar’s clean. We’re alone.”

Malone noticed a defined trail that routed through a bushy grove, then worked a path up the rocky incline, disappearing into a shadowy cleft. He also saw what looked like a power conduit marching up the rock waste, parallel to the trail, fastened close to the ground. “Looks like somebody is interested in that mountain.”

“I saw that, too,” Cassiopeia said.

He said, “We need to find out who owns this place. But we also need to be prepared.” He still carried the gun that he’d brought with him into the country. But he’d used a few rounds. “You have weapons on board?”

Viktor nodded. “The cabinet in back.”

He looked at Cassiopeia. “Get us each one.”

ZOVASTINA ENJOYED THE SHOCK ON BOTH LYNDSEY AND VINCENTI’S faces. “Did you think me that stupid?”

“Damn you, Irina,” Karyn said.

“That’s enough.” Zovastina leveled her gun.

Karyn hesitated at the challenge, then retreated to the far side of one of the tables. Zovastina turned her attention back to Vincenti. “I warned you about the Americans. Told you they were watching. And this is how you show your gratitude?”

“You expect me to believe that? If it wasn’t for the antiagents, you’d have killed me long ago.”

“You and your League wanted a haven. I gave you one. You wanted financial freedom. You have it. You wanted land, markets, ways to clean your dirty money. I gave you all those. But that wasn’t enough, was it?”

Vincenti stared back at her, seemingly keeping a tight grip on his own expression.

“You apparently have a different agenda. Something, I assume, not even your League knows about. Something that involves Karyn.” She fully realized Vincenti would never admit any allegations. But Lyndsey. He was another matter. So she focused on him. “And you’re a part of this, too.”

The scientist watched her with undisguised terror.

“Get out of here, Irina,” Karyn said. “Leave him be. Leave them both be. They’re doing great things.”

Bewilderment attacked her. “Great things?”

“He’s cured me, Irina. Not you. Him. He cured me.”

Her curiosity rose as she sensed that Karyn may provide the information she lacked. “HIV is not curable.”

Karyn laughed. “That’s your problem, Irina. You think nothing is possible without you. The great Achilles on a hero’s journey to save his beloved. That’s you. A fantasy world that exists only in your mind.”

Her neck tensed and the hand that held the gun stiffened.

“I’m not some epic poem,” Karyn said. “This is real. It’s not about Homer or the Greeks or Alexander. It’s about life and death. My life. My death. And this man,” she clutched Vincenti by the arm, “this man has cured me.”

“What nonsense have you told her?” she asked Vincenti.

“Nonsense?” Karyn shot back. “He found it. The cure. One dose and I haven’t felt this good in years.”

What had Vincenti discovered?

“Don’t you see, Irina?” Karyn said. “You did nothing. He did it all. He has the cure.”

She stared at Karyn. A bundle of raw energy. A tangle of emotions. “Do you have any idea what I did to try and save you? The chances I took. You came back to me in need, and I helped you.”

“You did nothing for me. Only for yourself. You watched me suffer, you wanted me to die-”

“Modern medicine had nothing to offer. I was trying to find something that might help. You ungrateful whore. ” Her voice rose with indignation.

Sadness clouded Karyn’s face. “You don’t get it, do you? You never got it. A possession. That’s all I was to you, Irina. Something you could control. That’s why I cheated on you. Why I sought other women, and men. To show you that I couldn’t be dominated. You never got it and still don’t.”

Her heart rebelled as her mind agreed with what Karyn said. She faced Vincenti. “You found the cure for AIDS?”

He glared at her, unresponsive.

“Tell me,” she shouted. She had to know. “Did you find Alexander’s draught. The place of the Scythians?”

“I have no idea what that is,” he said. “I know nothing about Alexander, the Scythians, or any draught. But she’s right. Long ago I found a cure in the mountain behind the house. A local healer told me about the place. He called it, in his language, Arima, the attic. It’s a natural substance that can make us all rich.”

“That’s what this is about? A way to make more money?”

“ Your ambition will be the ruin of us all.”

“So you tried to have me killed? To stop me? Yet you warned me. Lost your nerve?”

He shook his head. “I decided on a better way.”

She heard again what Edwin Davis had told her and realized its truth. She motioned at Karyn. “You were going to use her to discredit me. Turn the people against me. First, cure her. Then, use her. Then, what, Enrico? Kill her?”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Karyn said. “He saved me.”

Zovastina was beyond caring. Taking Karyn back had been a mistake. Lots of foolish chances had been taken for her expense.

And all for nothing.

“Irina,” Karyn yelled, “if the people of this damned Federation knew what you really were no one would follow you. You’re a fraud. A murderous fraud. All you know is pain. That’s your pleasure. Pain. Yes, I wanted to destroy you. I wanted you to feel as small as I do.”

Karyn was the only one to whom she’d bared her soul, a closeness she’d never felt with another human being. Homer was right. Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it.

So she shot Karyn in the chest.

Then again, in the head.

VINCENTI HAD BEEN WAITING FOR ZOVASTINA TO ACT. HE STILL held the flash drive in his closed left hand. He kept that hand resting on the waist-high table, while his right hand slowly opened the top drawer.

The weapon he’d brought from upstairs lay inside.

Zovastina shot Karyn Walde a third time.

He gripped the gun.

ZOVASTINA’S ANGER SURGED WITH EACH PULL OF THE TRIGGER. Bullets ripped through Karyn’s emaciated frame, pinging off the block wall behind her. Her former lover never realized what happened, dying quickly, her body contorted on the floor, bleeding.

Grant Lyndsey had sat silent throughout their exchange. He was nothing. A weak soul. Useless. Vincenti, though, was different. He would not go down without a fight, and surely he realized he was about to die.

So she swung the gun in his direction.

His right hand came into view, holding a pistol.

She shot him four times, emptying the magazine of its remaining rounds.

Blood roses blossomed on Vincenti’s shirt.

Eyes rolled skyward and his grip on the gun released, clattering away as his bulky frame fell to the floor.

Two problems solved.

She stepped close to Lyndsey and pointed the empty weapon at his face. Horror stared back. It mattered not that the magazine was empty. The gun itself was more than sufficient to make her point.

“I warned you,” she said, “to stay in China.”

STEPHANIE, HENRIK, AND ELY WERE BEING HELD INSIDE THE house. They’d been driven from the gate to the mansion, their car stashed inside a separate garage. Nine infantrymen guarded the interior. Stephanie had seen no staff. They were standing in what appeared to be a library, the room spacious and elegant with towering windows that framed panoramic views of the lush valley beyond the house. Three men with AK-74s, their hair cropped into a utilitarian black brush, stood at the ready, one by the window, another by the door, and a third near an Oriental cabinet. A corpse lay on the floor. Caucasian, middle age, perhaps American, with a bullet to the head.