Steve Berry - The Venetian Betrayal

The copter touched ground and the turbine wound down. The motor’s roar was replaced with an eerie silence. She slid open the compartment door. Malone and Viktor started their exit. The afternoon was dry, the sun welcome, the air warm. She checked her watch-3:25 P.M. This had been a long day, and there was no end in sight. Her only sleep had been a couple of hours on the plane from Venice with Zovastina, but that had been an uneasy slumber.

She handed each man a gun.

Malone tossed his other pistol into the copter and stuffed the gun into his belt. Viktor did the same.

They were maybe one hundred fifty meters behind the house, just beyond the grove of trees. The trail leading up the mountain stretched to their right. Malone bent down and felt the thick electrical conduit that paralleled its course. “Humming. Somebody definitely wants power up there.”

“What’s there?” Viktor asked.

“Maybe what your former boss has been searching for.”

STEPHANIE CHECKED ON HENRIK AS ZOVASTINA ORDERED TWO OF the soldiers down into the lab.

“You all right?” she asked him.

He nodded. “I’ve taken worse.”

But she wondered. He was on the other side of sixty, with a crooked spine, and not in what she thought was the best physical condition.

“You should not listen to these people,” Zovastina said to Ely.

“Why not? You’re the one pointing guns at everyone. Striking old men. Want to try me?”

Zovastina chuckled. “An academician who likes a fight? No, my smart friend. You and I don’t need to battle. I need you helping me.”

“Then stop all this, let them go, and you got it.”

“I wish it were that simple.”

“She’s right. It can’t be that simple,” Thorvaldsen said. “Not when she’s planning a biological war. A modern-day Alexander the Great, who will kill millions to reconquer all that he did and more.”

“Don’t mock me,” Zovastina warned.

Thorvaldsen seemed unfazed. “I’ll talk to you however I please.”

Zovastina raised the AK-74.

Ely jumped in front of Thorvaldsen. “If you want that tomb,” he made clear, “lower the gun.”

Stephanie wondered if this despot coveted that ancient treasure enough to be openly challenged in front of one of her men.

“Your usefulness is rapidly declining,” Zovastina made clear.

“That tomb could well be within walking distance of here,” Ely said.

Stephanie admired Ely’s determination. He was dangling a piece of meat to an uncaged lion, hoping an intense hunger overrode the instinctive desire to attack. But he seemed to have read Zovastina perfectly.

She lowered the gun.

The two soldiers returned with a computer mainframe cradled in each of their arms.

“It’s all on there,” Lyndsey said. “The experiments. Data. Methodology of dealing with the archaea. All encrypted. But I can undo that. Only me and Vincenti knew the passwords. He trusted me. Told me everything.”

“There are experts who can unencrypt anything. I don’t need you.”

“But it’ll take others time to duplicate the chemistry that’s needed to deal with the bacteria. Vincenti and I worked on that for the past three years. You don’t have that time. You won’t have the antiagent.”

Stephanie realized that the spineless fool was offering the only collateral he possessed.

Zovastina barked out something in a language Stephanie did not understand and the two men cradling the computers left the room. She then motioned with her gun and told them to follow the men out.

They walked down the hall into the main foyer and headed toward the ground floor rear. Another soldier appeared and Zovastina asked something in what sounded like Russian. The man nodded and pointed at a closed door.

They were halted before it, and after it was opened, she, Thorvaldsen, Ely, and Lyndsey were herded inside and the door closed behind them.

She surveyed their prison.

An empty storage closet, maybe eight feet by ten, paneled in unfinished wood. The air smelled of antiseptic.

Lyndsey lunged at the door and banged on the thick wood. “I can help you,” he screamed. “Let me out of here.”

“Shut up,” Stephanie spat out.

Lyndsey went quiet.

She studied their predicament, her mind racing. Zovastina seemed in a hurry. Preoccupied.

The door reopened.

“Thank God,” Lyndsey said.

Zovastina stood with the AK-74 still gripped tightly.

“Why are you doing-” Lyndsey started.

“I agree with her,” Zovastina said. “Shut up.” Zovastina set her gaze on Ely. “I need to know. Is this the place from the riddle?”

Ely did not immediately answer and Stephanie wondered if it was courage or foolishness that fueled his obstinance. Finally, he said, “How would I know? I’ve been locked away in that cabin.”

“You came straight here from that cabin,” Zovastina said.

“How do you know that?” Ely asked.

But Stephanie knew the answer. The pieces clicked into place and she realized the worst. They’d been played. “You ordered that guard to shoot out the tires on our car. You wanted us to take his car. It’s trackable.”

“Easiest way I could think of to see what you knew. I was alerted to your presence at the cabin by electronic surveillance I had installed around it.”

But Stephanie had killed the guard. “That man had no idea.”

Zovastina shrugged. “He did his job. If you got the better of him, that was his mistake.”

“But I killed him,” she said, her voice rising.

Zovastina seemed puzzled. “You worry far too much about something that means nothing.”

“He didn’t need to die.”

“That’s your problem. That’s the West’s problem. You can’t do what needs to be done.”

Stephanie now knew that their situation was worse than she imagined, and she suddenly realized something else. So was Malone’s and Cassiopeia’s. And she saw that Henrik read her bleak thoughts.

Behind Zovastina, several of the troops walked by, each carrying a strange-looking contraption. One was deposited on the floor beside Zovastina. A funnel extended from its top and she’d spotted wheels beneath.

“This is a big house. It will take a little while to prepare it.”

“For what?” she asked.

“To burn,” Thorvaldsen answered.

“Quite right,” Zovastina said. “In the meantime I’m going to visit Mr. Malone and Ms. Vitt. Don’t go away.”

And Zovastina slammed the door.

MALONE LED THE WAY UP THE INCLINE AND NOTICED, AT PLACES, that steps had been chipped from the rock recently. Cassiopeia and Viktor followed, both keeping a lookout behind. The distant house remained quiet and Ptolemy’s riddle kept playing through his mind. Climb the god-built walls. This certainly qualified, though he imagined the climb in Ptolemy’s time would have been much different.

The trail leveled off on a ledge.

The power conduit continued to snake a path into a dark cleft in the rock wall. Narrow, but passable.

When you reach the attic.

He led the way into the passage.

His eyes were not accustomed to the diminishing light and needed a few seconds to adjust. The path was short, maybe twenty feet, and he used the conduit as a guide. The corridor ended inside a larger chamber. Weak ambient light revealed that the power line hooked left and ended at a junction box. He stepped close and saw four flashlights piled on the floor. He flicked one on and used the bright beam to survey the room.

The chamber was maybe thirty feet long and that much or more wide, the ceiling a good twenty feet away. Then he noticed two pools about ten feet apart.