The Venetian Betrayal

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.”

EIGHTY-TWO

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.

“None of this is good,” she whispered to Henrik.

“I can’t see an upside.”

Ely appeared calm. But he’d lived under a threat for the past couple months, probably still confused as to what was happening, but willing to trust Henrik. Or, more realistically, Cassiopeia, who he knew was nearby. It was obvious the younger man cared for her. But any reunion was not going to happen soon. Stephanie hoped Malone would be more careful than she’d been. Her cell phone remained in her pocket. Curiously, though she’d been searched, they’d allowed her to keep it.

A click attracted her attention.

She turned to see the Oriental cabinet rotate inward, stopping halfway and revealing a passageway. A small, impish man with balding hair and a worried face emerged from the darkness followed by Irina Zovastina, who held a gun. The guard gave his Supreme Minister a wide berth, retreating to the windows. Zovastina pressed a button on a controller and the cabinet closed. She then tossed the device onto the corpse.

Zovastina handed her gun to one of the guards and gripped the man’s AK-74. She walked straight to Thorvaldsen and rammed the butt into his stomach. The breath left the Dane as he doubled over and grabbed his gut.

Both Stephanie and Ely moved to help, but the other guards quickly aimed their weapons.

“I decided,” Zovastina said, “instead of calling you back, as you suggested earlier, to come in person.”

Thorvaldsen battled for breath and stood upright, fighting the pain. “Good to know…I made such…a strong impression…”

“Who are you?” Zovastina asked Stephanie.

She introduced herself and added, “U.S. Justice Department.”

“Malone works for you?”

She nodded and lied, “He does.”

Zovastina faced Ely. “What have these spies told you?”

“That you’re a liar. That you’ve been holding me against my will, without me even knowing.” He paused, perhaps to summon courage. “That you’re pla

ZOVASTINA WAS ANGRY WITH HERSELF. SHE’D ALLOWED EMOTION to rule. Killing Vincenti had been necessary. Karyn? She regretted killing her, though there was no choice. Had to be done. The cure for AIDS? How was that possible? Were they deceiving her? Or simply misleading? Vincenti had been up to something for sometime. She’d known that. That was why she’d recruited spies of her own, like Kamil Revin, who’d kept her informed.

She stared at her three prisoners and made clear to Thorvaldsen, “You may have been ahead of me in Venice, but you’re not anymore.”

She motioned with the rifle at Lyndsey. “Come here.”

The man stood rooted, his gaze locked on the gun. Zovastina gestured and one of the soldiers shoved Lyndsey toward her. He stumbled to the floor and tried to stand, but she cut him off as he came to one knee, nestling the barrel of the AK-74 into the bridge of his nose. “Tell me exactly what’s happening here. You have to the count of three. One.”

Silence.

“Two.”

More silence.

“Three.”

MALONE’S BAD FEELING WAS GROWING WORSE. THEY WERE STILL hovering a couple of miles from the house, using the mountains for cover. Still, no signs of activity either inside or out. Without question, the estate below cost tens of millions of dollars. It sat in a region of the world where there simply weren’t that many people who could afford such luxury, except perhaps Zovastina herself.

“That place needs checking,” he said.