The Venetian Betrayal

He wanted to inquire further, but knew now was not the time. His answer, though, was never in doubt. “She’s got it.” He paused. “You’ve both got it.”

Thorvaldsen squeezed his arm in appreciation. Cassiopeia kept her attention ahead, navigating the boat through the swells.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

The roar of the engine and the wind masked his question so that only Thorvaldsen heard him.

“Bad enough. But now we have hope.”

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 stu

“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 café at the far end of the street.

The Jan Heuval occupied the ground floor of a three-story warehouse. A brown café, one of hundreds that dotted the Rembrandtplein. She shoved open the front door and immediately noticed the aroma of burning ca

The café 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.