The Golden Vendetta (15 page)

A
irports were airports were airports.

But after sleeping on the short flight over, when Lily set foot in Casablanca's Mohammed V International Airport, she felt different. Beyond the speedy passport control—it was in the wee hours and the lines were thin—the arrivals terminal was airy and open and light, and it blossomed with sound and color that despite the heaviness in her made her seem to float. Even at 2:14 in the morning.

Yeah,
she thought,
it's weird. But I'll take it.

“Which one of you is Darrell?” a voice said.

They turned to see a dark-haired man of around forty. He had a rough face, tanned to a deep brown. He
was dressed in sport clothes and running shoes.

“Why are you asking?” said Sara, stepping in front of Darrell.

“Because we don't have condors in Morocco, and they're not red anyway. We have other birds, but not condors.”

Wade narrowed his eyes at the man. “Wait. Is this the code?”

“It might be,” said the man. “We have Egyptian vultures. You could have had me say ‘the Egyptian vulture has landed.' That would have worked. People would think I know what I'm doing, at least.” He looked at Darrell from his dark eyes. That lasted a long time before he added, “And your response is . . . ?”

Becca laughed as Darrell said, “Barracudas like spaghetti. No, tortellini.”

The man nodded slowly. “They don't, but let it pass. My name is Silva. Just Silva. I've known Terence and Julian for a long time. Come on, then.”

He spun around on his heels and led them outside and along a row of spotlights to a large Land Rover in the short-term parking area. Over his shoulder he said, “My men are watching Drangheta's compound. It's in hill country, so the house has a bird's-eye view of the surrounding miles, except for a ring of foothills to the
southwest. That's where we're going now. If things are still quiet, they won't be for long. Your friend Galina may already be in Morocco, so we need to get a move on.”

“Do you have a plan for getting the, uh, object back?” asked Becca.

“The da Vinci glasses?” he said. “Julian trusts me. And yes, I do. I'll explain on the way.”

As soon as they piled into the Rover and motored away from the airport, Lily knew they were entering a world unlike anything she'd seen before. Blue buildings. Gold domes. Arches. People crowding the streets so long after midnight.

Africa! What did she know about Africa?

“Listen,” Silva said, “you need to know exactly what we're up against tonight. Ugo Drangheta is a brute, a nasty businessman with a trail of corporate corpses in his wake. Besides that, he's waiting for trouble tonight, which will make his villa a tough nut to crack. The place is a high-security fortress. He has a battalion of private soldiers, vehicles, arms. An arsenal that rivals that of a small country.”

“Do you think he's on our side?” asked Wade. “I mean, I kind of hope that he is, but also that he's not. His men at the hotel were as bloody as the Order's.
Guardians would never do that. I hope.”

“No, Guardians wouldn't,” said Sara.

“Consider him a violent enemy, a real piece of work,” Silva said. “If he's anything else, you'll be pleasantly surprised. I doubt he has a beef with you, but the moment you reach for the glasses, you're a target. Bear in mind that Drangheta has friends in the government and a lot of interests around the world. Luckily, and I'm using that word loosely, Galina Krause will be coming with guns blazing. Our only chance of breaking in is when she begins her attack.”

“Shouldn't we try to get in before it all starts?” asked Wade.

Silva shook his head. “The crossfire will distract everyone. For a short time, anyway. It won't be safe, but it'll be the one shield we're likely to get. A battle waged too soon is a battle lost.”

He let that settle in as he drove relentlessly away from the city lights.

Sara looked at the kids. “You probably think I'm going to say we need to bail out of this right now. Believe me, I'm considering it every step of the way. But right now, we're going ahead. Becca knows why. We all do. The horrors Galina will do if she assembles the astrolabe. Still, we should decide on a place to meet in
case we get separated.”

The Rover began climbing into the foothills southwest of the compound.

“We won't get separated,” Wade said. “We promised you and Dad.”

Sara cracked a humorless smile. “Uh-huh. But this is different. We need one just in case. Silva, can you suggest a good rendezvous?”

He took a breath. The Rover began to slow.

“How about the Pyramids?” said Darrell. “I always wanted to see them.”

“They're two thousand miles away with the barracudas and the condors,” Silva said. “There's a children's hospital, l'Hôpital d'Enfants, in central Casablanca. Very international. On several tram routes. They'll take care of you.”

“A French hospital?” said Becca.

Silva turned the Rover onto an upward path toward the crest of the hills. “The French colonized a good part of North Africa. Morocco became independent in 1955, Tunisia the next year, Algeria in 1962, but before that, it was all French. A little Spanish, too. Lots of French still live around here. English. Some Americans. The culture is a mix of African and European.”

It was nearing three a.m. Lily breathed in the night.
The cool air rushed in the windows and over her face. The sky above was immense and huge, wide and black. Different. So different. Finally, Silva coiled the Rover up a series of steep roads at the summit of the foothills, stopped, and shut off the engine.

He jumped out and opened a small chest in the rear of the vehicle. From it he took a set of desert camouflage and slipped into it. He fitted a special-forces beret on his head and slung a heavy automatic weapon over his shoulder, an ammunition belt across his chest, and binoculars around his neck.

He gave a low whistle, and a figure trotted down a path along a ridge on the far side of the hill. Silva said, “This is K. K, meet everyone. Everyone, meet K.”

K, a scruffy bearded man, bald and wearing no beret, shook hands with them. A walkie-talkie on his belt crackled softly.

“Drangheta and Mistral, the thief, have been home for an hour plus,” K said. “No sign of the Order yet. Our man inside, Jibran, tells us the vault room is in the back, or the south side of the house.”

“You have a guy inside?” said Darrell. “That's good.”

Silva smiled humorlessly. “Until he's discovered.” He led them a few paces toward the lip of the hill. “You can see the main room. Use this.” He slipped a slender
riflescope from a holder on his belt and held it out. “If there's a chance, Jibran will raise the bars on one of the windows.”

The main room of the villa that Wade saw through the scope was like an aquarium, glassed in on three sides and barred. The fourth, solid wall was hung with a bizarre collection of weapons, obviously from different cultures and ranging from the antique to the very latest.

“I'm guessing the Order will come in from the north,” K said. “The least protected part of the perimeter. It's down there.” He pointed to a gap in the foothills, a half mile from where the main driveway snaked onto the estate. “We have men surrounding the property.”

Silva nodded and turned to Sara. “The instant the Order makes itself known, Drangheta's men will counterattack and leave the house at least for a short period. If our man raises the window bars, we go in. Five, ten minutes is all the time we'll have. And if Mistral hangs around the vault, we'll probably have to take her on hand to hand. Just saying.”

“Until then?” asked Wade.

“Body armor,” said Silva, reaching once more into the back of the Rover. “A set for each of you. Sara, we'll need you to go in with us to identify the glasses. Are
you okay with—”

“I'll do it.” Sara slid her armor over her blouse.

Darrell turned. “Mom, you understand how awesome this is, right? No mom in the history of life ever did what you're doing. You're like . . . Joan of Arc.”

“She wasn't a mother,” Sara said. “And she was captured.”

“Sure, but—”

“And executed.”

Darrell took a breath. “Okay, bad example, but still.”

“But still,” she said, “tighten your straps.”

“Listen to your mother,” said Silva. “I don't want to lose more than one or two of you.”

F
or the next thirteen minutes, Wade gazed up at the vast black dome of the sky. It glistened with a sea of silvery stars. He knew the
ocularia
were Becca's thing, but he couldn't stop imagining what the strange glasses might reveal to them.

Would the silvery pages resolve into words and give up their secrets? Would the kids actually discover where the mysterious Triangulum was hidden? Or would they find only more and more riddles to unravel, an endless stream of puzzles?

He allowed his thoughts to shuttle between the excitement of discovery and the frustration of confusion, until even that fell quiet.

He felt sleep coming on, when five or six nearly simultaneous explosions rocked the perimeter of the compound.

He bolted up. Everyone was watching from the hilltop. He scrambled up to them on his hands and knees. K was nowhere in sight.

“Get ready,” Silva said.

They next heard the chatter of machine-gun fire. It sounded aimless at first, coming from wildly different directions, as if Drangheta's guards were confused about where the threat actually was. But the firing continued, and Wade realized that the compound was being attacked from at least three positions. The suddenness and ferocity of the attack shocked him.

“Galina's moving in,” Darrell said, nudging him. “You hear that, right?”

“Yeah. Gunfire is already pulling away from the main house.”

Then came the growling of a heavy vehicle fifty yards down to their right.

“Flatten!” Silva shouted, and they hunkered in a dip in the crest of the hill.

This was too much like war, Wade thought. Hot war, not the covert stuff, the kind they'd seen so far. It was way out in the open. A vehicle, an armored truck,
barreled straight for the perimeter fence. It fired a blast, and he saw the fence go slack. The truck drove over the barrier as if it didn't exist. It was inside the compound.

Suddenly, K was back with them, his face poised between fear and opportunity. He tilted his head at Silva. “That was Galina. She's inside. The bars are still down. Boss?”

“We need to be in position in case they go up,” Silva said over the popping of gunfire. “I don't want Jibran risking his life for nothing.” He turned to them. “There will be a blast in the front of the house. That's the cue for Sara and K to go down the hill toward the rear of the villa and get ready to enter. Once the bars open, you get in there, locate the package, then get out. Understood, Sara? Everyone? The Rover is our getaway.”

They nodded, and Sara retightened her armor straps. “Listen, kids. Stay up here, well outside the compound. Don't you dare move. Be ready to jump into the Rover. That's all.”

“Mom, you have to be careful,” said Darrell. “If I go back without you, Dad will have a fit.”

She smirked. “I hope more than a fit, but yes. I'll be careful. I know what we're looking for. We'll only enter the house if the fighting moves away from it.”

“It's looking like that,” said Silva, finishing a phone
call to his men nearest the point of attack. “Watch over there—”

A flash of white light broke the darkness. It was followed a couple of seconds later by a thunderous blast.

“This is it,” said K. “Go, go, go!” A dozen black-clad mercenaries appeared out of nowhere and started down the hill. K and Sara followed. The four kids remained at the crest with Silva.

“Can I use the scope again?” Wade asked.

Silva passed it to him. Its magnification was strong, and once he sighted the house, he could see down inside the glass-walled room and into the central courtyard. He spotted a shape in a side room. “The thief,” he said.

She moved across the windows, checking her phone.

“She's nervous. She knows Galina's coming,” said Becca. “While the Order's troops fight, Galina will swoop in, grab the glasses, and get out. . . .”

“My men know what they're doing,” Silva said. “Once those window bars go up, if there's a ghost of a chance, Sara and my guys will be in and out in minutes.”

Wade hoped it was true, but didn't like the word
ghost.

From her seat inside the lead transport, Galina monitored the global positioning data on the screen to her
right. She counted close to two dozen figures swarming the main house.

“Two of them will be Drangheta and the thief,” she said.

Ebner von Braun, cringing next to her, didn't reply. There was nothing for him to say. He had spent the last two hours trying to convince her that “going public” this way, with a physical assault on Moroccan soil, was the beginning of a war that could not be retracted.

To which she had said, “We are out of time. Do you doubt that we will win?”

“Not at all, but—”

“Victory has a way of silencing the losers. In a few days, it will not be an issue. You'll see.”

Ebner said nothing.

Four minutes later, Galina slid from the transport. One of her men blew a hole through the front door of the house. She kicked aside the splinters, then entered. As he sat in the idling transport, Ebner watched her sidestepping the bodies—through the windows he counted thirteen of Drangheta's guards slain. Galina would follow her instinct and soon find the inner chamber, the vault room, the sanctum. Galina, as ghostly as she was, seemed on fire and unstoppable.

From the secure position on the hillside, Darrell kept his eyes trained on the compound. Taking the scope from Wade, he watched the progress of his mother, K, and the other troops. At first, they advanced smoothly and swiftly. Then the window bars shot upward, and just when they should have made their final run to the house, a crossfire developed between the Order and Drangheta's soldiers, pinning his mother and the others in a trench between two high-defense walls. They hadn't been spotted and weren't in danger—unless they moved. They were simply unable to advance or retreat while the battle for the villa surrounded them.

Mom, stay put. Stay put!

That's when he spied a slender shape moving against the light inside the house.

“It's Galina,” he breathed. “She got in.”

Becca stood. “She'll get the glasses. We have to go down there.”

“We do,” said Lily. “Mr. Silva—”

“It's just Silva, and you're not going anywhere.” His face was as impassive as stone.

“Not without you we're not, and you're going down there,” Darrell said, surprising himself and wondering if it was okay to argue with a soldier. “This whole thing is about the glasses. You even said we have five minutes
before the fighting shifts back to the house and those bars go down. Then we'll never get in. Nobody likes a failed mission. We can do this. Look, it's just Galina and the thief in there. We have the odds. But if we wait, we won't.”

Silva stared down at the action.

Darrell knew that as long as the window stayed unbarred there was an opening for a surgical strike. Since his mother and K and his men couldn't get into the house, it was either helplessly watch Galina steal the glasses or intervene.

“We'll have a big price to pay to Sara and my dad,” Wade said. “But it's worth getting yelled at, if we can hold up the glasses and say, ‘We got them.'”

Silva checked his firearm. “So, okay, then.”

“Really?” said Darrell. “We convinced you?”

“Not really, but you said the magic words. Nobody likes a failed mission. Least of all me.” He took a small pack of explosives from the Rover and stuffed it into a pouch on his belt. “Everybody stick behind me. Ready? Go, go, go.”

They pushed down the hillside and onto level ground in minutes. Silva slid into the bushes outside the house like a snake. Darrell, Lily, Becca, and Wade followed
him along the house's westernmost wall toward the south side.

As soon as they were close to the window, Darrell saw Galina's face clearly. It was as pale as ice, almost ghoulish, except for the bright red scar on the side of her neck under her ear, left over from her operation four years ago in Russia.

Whoa.

In the instant it took him to think of that, Drangheta was in the room, his handgun sighted at Galina's head. The thief had vanished. Galina didn't appear to move. Then a burst of automatic gunfire came from somewhere in the shadows behind her. Drangheta leaped back and slipped away, replaced by a troop of his house guards. They tried to surround Galina, but Teutonic agents in body armor lunged out of the shadows and pursued them, firing.

Galina then disappeared into another room.

“She's following the thief into the vault room,” Becca said.

“This way.” Silva crouched. He moved quickly across a walled terrace.

As they followed, Darrell shot a glance at Lily, who was already looking at him. He wanted to be nearer to
her, shield her, even, but that thought went nowhere. Silva raised the butt of his gun and broke the window. Darrell shook like a leaf when he slipped through and set his feet on the floor inside the villa.