The Venetian Betrayal

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 fu

“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.

EIGHTY-FOUR

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.

He heard a click and the room sprang to life with incandescent light.

He turned to see Viktor at the electrical box.

He switched off the flashlight. “I like to check things out before acting.”

“Since when?” Cassiopeia said.

“Take a look,” Viktor said, motioning at the pools.

Both were illuminated by underwater lights fed through ground cables. The one on the right was oblong shaped and carried a brown tint. The other was luminous with greenish phosphorescence.

“Gaze into the tawny eye,” Malone said.

He stepped close to the brown pool and noticed that the water was swimming-pool clear, its color coming from the tint of the rocks below the surface. He crouched down. Cassiopeia bent down beside him. He tested the water. “Warm, but not too bad. Like a hot tub. Must be thermal vented. These mountains are still active.”

Cassiopeia brought wet fingers to her lips. “No taste.”

“Look at the bottom.”

He watched as Cassiopeia registered what he’d just spotted. Maybe ten feet down in the crystalline water, carved from a slab of rock, lying flat, was the letter Z.

He walked to the green pool. Cassiopeia followed. More water clear as air, colored by tinted stone. At its bottom lay the letter H.

“From the medallion,” he said. “ZH. Life.”

“Seems this is the place.”

He noticed Viktor had stayed close to the electrical box, not all that concerned with their discovery. But there was something else. Now he knew what the last line of the riddle meant.

And dare to find the distant refuge.

He returned to the brown pool. “Remember on the medallion, and at the bottom of that manuscript Ely found. That odd symbol.” With his finger he traced its outline in the sandy topsoil.

“I couldn’t determine what it was. Letters? Like two B’s joined to an A? Now I know exactly what it is. There.” He pointed at the rock wall six feet beneath the brown pool’s surface. “See that opening. Look familiar?”

Cassiopeia focused on what he’d already noticed. The opening appeared like two B’s joined to an A. “It does look like it.”

“When you reach the attic, gaze into the tawny eye, and dare to find the distant refuge. You know what that means?”

“No, Malone. Tell us what that means.”

He turned.

Irina Zovastina stood just outside the exit.

STEPHANIE NESTLED CLOSE TO THE DOOR AND LISTENED FOR ANY sound on the other side. She heard the whine of an electrical motor, starting, stopping, then a bump to the door. A hesitation, then the mechanical hum began again.

“It’s canvassing,” Thorvaldsen said. “The robots spread the potion before exploding and setting everything off.”

She noticed an odor. Sickeningly sweet. Strongest at the bottom of the door. “Greek fire?” she asked.

Thorvaldsen nodded, then said to Ely, “Your discovery.”

“That crazy bitch is going to fry us all,” Lyndsey said. “We’re trapped in here.”

“Tell us something we don’t know,” Stephanie muttered.

“Did she kill anyone with it?” Ely asked.

“Not that I know of,” Thorvaldsen said. “We may have the honor of being first. Though Cassiopeia certainly used it to her advantage in Venice.” The older man hesitated. “She killed three men.”

Ely seemed shocked. “Why?

“To avenge you.”

The younger man’s amiable face hardened into a puzzled frown.

“She was hurt. Angry. Once she found out Zovastina was behind things, there was no stopping her.”

Stephanie examined the door. Steel hinges top and bottom. Bolts held their pins in place and no screwdriver in sight. She pounded her hand against the wood. “Does Vincenti own this monstrosity?” she asked Lyndsey.

“He did. She shot him.”