Steve Berry - The Venetian Betrayal

He glanced around.

Flames poured from the second floor, engulfing the marble railing and consuming the walls. Glass in the tall outer windows shattered from the fiery assault.

The floor ignited.

STEPHANIE SHIELDED HERSELF FROM THE WAVES OF HEAT THAT rushed past. The robot did not actually explode, more vaporized in an atomiclike flash. She lowered her arm to see fire stretching in all directions, like a tsunami-walls, ceiling, even the floor succumbing.

Fifty feet away and closing.

“Come on,” she said.

They fled the approaching maelstrom, running fast, but the flames were gaining ground. She realized the danger. Ely had been sprayed.

She glanced over her shoulder.

Ten feet away and closing.

The door to the bedchamber where they’d first exited the hidden passage was open just ahead. Lyndsey found it first. Ely next.

She and Thorvaldsen made it inside just as danger arrived.

“HE’S UP THERE,” CASSIOPEIA SAID TO THE SCENE OF THE SECOND floor burning, then she yelled, “Ely.”

Malone wrapped his arm around her neck and clamped her mouth shut.

“We’re not alone,” he whispered in her ear. “Think. More soldiers. And Zovastina and Viktor. They’re here. You can count on it.”

He released his hand.

“I’m going after him,” she made clear. “Those guards had to be shooting at them. Who else?”

“We have no way of knowing anything.”

“So where are they?” she asked the fire.

He motioned and they retreated into the parlor. He heard furniture crashing and more glass shattering from above. Luckily, none of the flames had descended the stairway, as in the Greco-Roman museum. But one of the priming mechanisms, as if sensing the heat, appeared across the foyer, which raised a concern.

If one exploded, more could, too.

ZOVASTINA HEARD SOMEONE CALL OUT ELY’S NAME, BUT SHE’D also felt the heat from the robot’s disintegration and smelled burning Greek fire.

“Fools,” she whispered to her troops, somewhere in the house.

“That was Vitt who shouted,” Viktor said.

“Find our men. I’ll find her and Malone.”

STEPHANIE SPOTTED THE CONCEALED DOOR, STILL OPEN, AND LED the way inside, quickly closing it behind them.

“Thank God,” Lyndsey said.

No smoke had yet accumulated in the hidden passage, but she heard fire trying to find its way through the walls.

They retreated to the stairway and scampered down to ground level.

She kept an eye out for the first available exit and saw an open door just ahead. Thorvaldsen saw it, too, and they exited into the mansion’s dining hall.

MALONE COULD NOT ANSWER CASSIOPEIA’S QUESTION ABOUT THE whereabouts of Stephanie, Henrik, and Ely, and he, too, was concerned.

“It’s time you back off,” Cassiopeia said to him.

That surliness from Copenhagen had returned. He thought a dose of reality might help. “We only have three bullets.”

“No, we don’t.”

She brushed past him, retrieved the assault rifles from the two dead guards, and checked the clips. “Plenty of rounds.” She handed him one. “Thanks, Cotton, for getting me here. But I have to do this.” She paused. “On my own.”

He saw that arguing with her was fruitless.

“There’s certainly another way up there,” she said. “I’ll find it.”

He was about to resign himself to follow her when movement to his left set off an alarm and he whirled, gun ready.

Viktor appeared in the doorway.

Malone fired a burst from the AK-74 and instantly sought cover in the foyer. He could not see if he hit the man but, looking around, one thing he knew for certain.

Cassiopeia was gone.

STEPHANIE HEARD SHOTS FROM SOMEWHERE ON THE GROUND floor. The dining hall spread out before her in an elaborate rectangle with towering walls, a vaulted ceiling, and leaded glass windows. A long table with a dozen chairs down each side dominated.

“We need to leave,” Thorvaldsen said.

Lyndsey bolted away, but Ely cut him off and slammed the scientist to the tabletop, jostling some of the chairs. “I told you we were going to the lab.”

“You can go to hell.”

Forty feet away, Cassiopeia appeared in the doorway. She was wet, looked tired, and carried a rifle. Stephanie watched as her friend spotted Ely. She’d taken a huge chance going with Zovastina from Venice, but the gamble had now paid off.

Ely spotted her, too, and released his grip on Lyndsey.

Behind Cassiopeia, Irina Zovastina materialized and nestled the barrel of a rifle against Cassiopeia’s spine.

Ely froze.

The Supreme Minister’s clothes and hair were also wet. Stephanie debated challenging her, but the odds shifted when Viktor and three soldiers appeared and leveled their weapons.

“Lower the guns,” Zovastina said. “Slowly.”

Stephanie locked her gaze on Cassiopeia and shook her head, signaling this was a battle they could not win. Thorvaldsen took the lead and laid his weapon on the table. She decided to do the same.

“Lyndsey,” Zovastina said. “Time for you to come with me.”

“No way.” He started to back away, toward Stephanie. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Zovastina said, and she motioned to one of the soldiers, who rushed toward Lyndsey, who was retreating back to where the concealed panel remained open.

Ely moved like he was going to grab the scientist, but when the soldier arrived, he shoved Lyndsey into him and slipped into the back passage, closing the door behind him.

Stephanie heard guns raised.

“No,” Zovastina yelled. “Let him go. I don’t need him and this place is about to burn to the ground.”

MALONE NAVIGATED THE MAZE OF ROOMS. ONE AFTER THE OTHER. Corridor to room to another corridor. He’d seen no one, but continued to smell fire burning on the upper stories. Most of the smoke seemed to have risen to the third floor, but it wouldn’t be long before the air here became tainted.

He needed to find Cassiopeia.

Where had she gone?

He passed a door that opened to what looked like an oversized storage closet. He glanced inside and noticed something unusual. Part of the unfinished paneled wall stood open, revealing a concealed passage. Beyond, bulbs tossed down stagnant pools of weak light.

He heard footsteps from inside the opening.

Approaching.

He gripped the rifle and flattened himself against the stinking wall, just outside the closet.

Fast steps kept coming.

He readied himself.

Someone emerged from the doorway.

With one hand he slammed the body into the wall, jamming the gun, his finger on the trigger, into the man’s jaw. Fierce blue eyes stared back at him, the face younger, handsome, without fear.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Ely Lund.”

ZOVASTINA WAS PLEASED. SHE CONTROLLED LYNDSEY, ALL OF VINCENTI’S data, Alexander’s tomb, the draught, and now Thorvaldsen, Cassiopeia Vitt, and Stephanie Nelle. She lacked only Cotton Malone and Ely Lund, neither one of which were of any real importance to her.