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EIGHT
COPENHAGEN
3:10 A.M.
CASSIOPEIA FOLLOWED MALONE AND HENRIK THORVALDSEN into Malone’s bookshop. She was tired. Even though she’d expected a long night, the past few months had taken a toll, especially the last few weeks, and the ordeal seemed far from over.
Malone switched on the lights.
She’d been told about what had happened the previous fall-when Malone’s ex-wife had appeared…and the firebombing-but the restorers had done a terrific job. She noted the workmanship. New, yet made to appear old. “My compliments to the craftsmen.”
Thorvaldsen nodded. “I wanted it to look like it once did. Too much history in this building to be blown away by fanatics.”
“Want to get out of those damp clothes?” Malone asked her.
“Shouldn’t we send Henrik home first?”
Malone gri
“Sounds intriguing,” Thorvaldsen said. “But tonight I’m not in the mood.”
Neither was she. “I’m fine. Leather dries quickly. One reason I wear it when I’m working.”
“And what were you working on tonight?”
“You sure you want to hear this? Like you say all the time, you’re a bookseller, not an operative. Retired, and all those other excuses.”
“You sent me an e-mail telling me to meet you at that museum in the morning. With what you said back at the fire, there wouldn’t have been any museum there tomorrow.”
She sat in one of the club chairs. “Which is why we were going to meet there. Tell him, Henrik.”
She liked Malone. He was a smart, confident, handsome man-she’d thought that when they first met last year in France. A uniquely trained lawyer. Twelve years he worked for the U.S. Justice Department in a covert unit known as the Magellan Billet. Then, two years ago, he opted out and bought a bookshop from Thorvaldsen in Copenhagen. He was plain spoken and sometimes rough in ma
She envied him.
Time.
For her, it seemed in such short supply.
“Cotton,” Thorvaldsen said, “across Europe there have been other fires. They started in France, then in Spain, Belgium, and Switzerland. Similar to what you just experienced. The police in each location realized arson but, so far, none of them have been co
“And how did you co
“We know what they’re after,” she said. “Elephant medallions.”
“You know,” Malone said, “that’s exactly what I was thinking. Five arsons. All across Europe. Has to be elephant medallions. What else could it be?”
“They’re real,” she said.
“Nice to know, but what the hell is an elephant medallion?”
“Twenty-three hundred years ago,” Thorvaldsen said, “after Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor and Persia, he set his sights on India. But his army quit him before he could take much of that land. He fought several battles in India and, for the first time, encountered war elephants. They crushed the Macedonian lines, wreaked havoc. Alexander’s men were terrified of them. Medallions were later struck to commemorate the event, which depicted Alexander facing off with the elephants.”
“The medallions,” she said, “were minted after Alexander’s death. We have no idea how many, but today only eight are known. The four already taken, the one from tonight, two more in private hands, and one on display in the Museum of Cultural History in Samarkand.”
“The capital of the Central Asian Federation?” Malone said. “Part of the region Alexander conquered.”
Thorvaldsen slouched in one of the club chairs, his crooked spine cocking his neck forward and settling his fleshy chin onto a thin chest. Cassiopeia noticed that her old friend looked worn. He wore his customary baggy sweater and oversized corduroy trousers. A uniform he used, she knew, to conceal the deformity. She regretted involving him, but he’d insisted. He was a good friend. Time to see how good a friend Malone was. “What do you know about the death of Alexander the Great?”
“I’ve read about it. Lots of myth mixed with conflicting facts.”
“That eidetic memory of yours?”
He shrugged. “It came with me out of the womb.”
She smiled. “What happened in June 323 BCE made a great deal of difference to the world.”
Thorvaldsen gestured with his arm. “Go ahead. Tell him. He needs to know.”
So she did.
On the final day of May, within the walls of Babylon, Alexander attended a di
“People still debate those last words,” she said.
“And why is it so important?” Malone asked.
“It’s what he left behind,” Thorvaldsen said. “His kingdom, with no rightful heir.”
“And that has something to do with elephant medallions?”
“Cotton,” Thorvaldsen said, “I bought that museum knowing someone would destroy it. Cassiopeia and I have been waiting for that to happen.”
She said, “We had to stay a step ahead of whoever is after the medallions.”
“Seems like they won. They have the thing.”
Thorvaldsen cast her a look, then the older man stared at Malone and said, “Not exactly.”