The Venetian Betrayal (14 page)

Sail onto the capital founded by Alexander's father
,
where sages stand guard.

Touch the innermost being of the golden illusion.

Divide the phoenix.

Life provides the measure of the true grave.

But be wary, for there is but one chance of success.

Climb the god-built walls.

When you reach the attic, gaze into the tawny eye
,
and dare to find the distant refuge.

Ptolemy then handed me a silver medallion that showed Alexander when he fought against elephants. He told me that, in honor of those battles, he'd minted the coins. He also told me to come back when I solved his riddle. But a month later Ptolemy lay dead.

Chapter
TWENTY-FIVE

SAMARKAND

CENTRAL ASIAN FEDERATION

11:50 P
. M
.

ZOVASTINA LIGHTLY RAPPED ON A WHITE LACQUERED DOOR. A stately, well-groomed woman in her late fifties with dull gray-black hair answered. Like always, Zovastina did not wait to be invited inside.

"Is she awake?"

The woman nodded and Zovastina marched down the hall.

The house dominated a wooded lot on the eastern outskirts of the city, beyond the sprawl of low-slung buildings and colorful mosques, in an area where many of the newer estates had sprung, the hilly terrain once littered with Soviet-era guard towers. Federation prosperity had generated both a middle and an upper class, and those with means had begun to flaunt it. This house, built a decade ago, belonged to Zovastina, though she'd never actually lived here. Instead, she'd given it to her lover.

She surveyed the luxurious interior. An elaborately carved Louis XV console displayed an array of white porcelain figurines given to her by the French president. A coffered ceiling topped the adjacent living room, its floor covered by inlaid parquetry protected by a Ukrainian carpet. Another gift. A German mirror anchored one end of the long room and taffeta draperies adorned three towering windows.

Every time she stepped down the marbled hall, her mind wandered back six years, to one afternoon when she'd approached the same closed door. Inside the bedroom she'd found Karyn naked, a thin-chested man with curly hair and muscular arms atop her. She could still hear their moans, their ferocious exploration of each other surprisingly arousing. She'd stood for a long minute, watching, until they broke apart.

"Irina," Karyn calmly said. "This is Michele."

Karyn had climbed from the bed and brushed back her long wavy hair, exposing breasts Irina had many times enjoyed. Lean as a jackal, every inch of Karyn's unblemished skin shimmered with the color of cinnamon. Thin lips curved contemptuously, tilted nose with delicate nostrils, cheeks smooth as porcelain. Zovastina had suspected her lover's cheating, but it was an entirely different matter to witness the act firsthand.

"You're lucky I don't have you killed."

Karyn seemed unconcerned. "Look at him. He cares how I feel, gives without question. You only take. It's all you know how to do. Give orders and expect them to be obeyed."

"I don't recall any complaints from you."

"Being your whore doesn't come cheap. I've given up things more precious than money."

Zovastina's gaze involuntarily drifted to the naked Michele.

"You like him, don't you?" Karyn said.

She did not answer. Instead, she commanded, "I want you out of here, by night fall."

Karyn stepped close, the sweet smell of an expensive perfume leading the way. "You really want me to go?" Her hand drifted to Zovastina's thigh. "Maybe you'd like to take off these clothes and join us."

She backhanded her lover across the face. Not the first time, but the first time in anger. A trickle of blood oozed from Karyn's busted lip and hatred stared back at her. "Gone. Before nightfall or, I promise, you'll not see morning."

Six years ago. A long time.

Or at least it seemed that way.

She turned the knob and entered.

The bedroom remained adorned with dainty French provincial furniture. A marble-and-gilt-bronze fireplace guarded by a pair of Egyptian porphyry lions decorated one wall. Seemingly out of place was the respirator beside the canopy bed, the oxygen bottle on the other side, and an intravenous bag suspended from a stainless-steel stand, transparent tubes snaking to one arm.

Karyn lay propped on pillows in the center of a queen-size bed, coral silk covers adjusted to her waist. Her flesh was the color of brown ash--her patina like waxed paper. Once-thick blond hair hung tangled, disheveled, thin as mist. Her eyes, which used to flash a vivid blue, now stared out of deep holes like creatures tucked away in caves. Angular cheeks were gone, replaced with a cadaverous gaunt that had transformed her pug nose into aquiline. A lace nightgown graced her emaciated frame as a flag hanging limp on a pole.

"What do you want tonight?" Karyn muttered, the voice brittle and strained. Tubing at her nostrils delivered oxygen with each breath. "Come to see if I'm dead?"

Irina crept close to the four-poster bed. The room's smell intensified. A sickening mixture of disinfectant, disease, and decay.

"Nothing to say?" Karyn managed, the voice mostly air.

She stared at the woman. Uncharacteristically for her, not a lot of planning had gone into their relationship. Karyn had first been on her staff, then her personal secretary, and finally her concubine. Five years together. Five more apart, until last year when Karyn unexpectedly returned to Samarkand, ill.

"I actually came to see how you were."

"No, Irina. You came to see when I would die."

She wanted to say that was the last thing she wanted, but thoughts of Michele and Karyn's betrayal kept her from any emotional concessions. Instead, she asked, "Was it worth it?"

Zovastina knew that years of unprotected sex, drifting from man to man and woman to woman, taking risks, had finally caught up with Karyn. Along the way, one of them had passed along HIV. Alone, frightened, and broke, last year Karyn had swallowed her pride and returned to the only place she'd thought might provide some comfort.

"Is that why you keep coming?" Karyn asked. "To see me proven wrong?"

"You were wrong."

"Your bitterness will consume you."

"This from a person who has literally been consumed by hers."

"Careful, Irina, you have no idea when I was infected. Maybe I'll share this misery."

"I've been tested."

"And what doctor was foolish enough to do that?" A cough racked Karyn's words. "Is he still alive to tell what he knows?"

"You haven't answered my question. Was it worth it?"

A smile creased the withdrawn face. "You can't order me anymore."

"You came back. You wanted help. I'm helping."

"I'm a prisoner."

"You can leave whenever you want." She paused. "Why can't you share the truth?"

"And what is the truth, Irina? That you're a lesbian. Your dear husband knew. He had to. You never speak of him."

"He's dead."

"A convenient car crash. How many times have you played that sympathy card with your people?"

This woman knew far too much of her business, which both attracted and repelled her. Their sense of intimacy, of sharing, had been part of their bond. Here was where, at one time, she could truly be herself. "He knew what was involved when he agreed to marry me. But he was ambitious, like you. He wanted the trappings. And I come with those trappings."

"How difficult it must be to live a lie."

"You do it."

Karyn shook her head. "No, Irina. I know what I am." The words seemed to sap her strength and Karyn paused to suck a few deep breaths before saying, "Why don't you just kill me?"

Some of Karyn's old self seeped through the bitter tone. Killing this woman was not an option. Saving her...that was the goal. Fate denied Achilles a chance to save his Patroclus. Incompetence cost Alexander the Great his love when Hephaestion died. She would not fall victim to the same mistakes.

"Can you seriously believe that anyone deserves this?" Karyn yanked her nightgown open. Tiny pearl buttons exploded outward onto the sheets. "Look at my breasts, Irina."

It hurt to look. Since Karyn had returned, Irina had studied AIDS and knew that the disease affected people differently. Some suffered internally. Blindness, colitis, life-threatening diarrhea, brain inflammation, tuberculosis, and worst of all, pneumonia. Others were emasculated externally, their skin covered with the effects of Kaposi's sarcoma, or devastated by herpes simplex, or ravaged by emaciation, the epidermis inevitably drawn down to bone. Karyn seemed the much more common combination.

"Remember how beautiful I was? My lovely skin? You used to adore my body."

She did recall. "Cover yourself up."

"Can't stand to see?"

She said nothing.

"You shit until your ass aches, Irina. You can't sleep, and your stomach stays in knots. I wait every day to see what new infection will spawn inside me. This is hell."

She'd tossed the woman in the helicopter to her death. She'd ordered the elimination of countless political opponents. She'd forged a Federation through a covert campaign of biological assassination that had claimed thousands. None of those deaths meant a thing. Karyn's dying was different. That was why she'd allowed her to stay. Why she supplied the drugs needed to keep her alive. She'd lied to those students. Here was her weakness. Perhaps her only one.

Karyn smiled faintly. "Every time you come here I see it in your eyes. You care." Karyn grabbed her arm. "You can help me, can't you? Those germs you played with years ago. You had to learn something. I don't want to die, Irina."

She fought to keep an emotional distance. Achilles and Alexander both failed by not doing that. "I'll pray to the gods for you."

Karyn started to laugh. A guttural, throaty chuckle mixed with the rattle of spit. Which both surprised and hurt her.

Karyn kept laughing.

She fled the bedroom and hurried to the front door.

These visits were a mistake. No more. Not now. Too much was about to happen.

The last thing she heard before leaving was the sickening sound of Karyn choking on her own saliva.

Chapter
TWENTY-SIX

VENICE

8:45 P
. M
.

VINCENTI PAID THE WATER TAXI, THEN HOISTED HIMSELF UP TO street level and marched into the San Silva, one of Venice's premier hotels. No weekend specials or cut-rate promotions applied here, just forty-two luxurious suites overlooking the Grand Canal in what was once the home of a Doge. Its grand lobby reflected old-world decadence. Roman columns, veined-marble, museum-quality accessories--the spacious surroundings busy with people, activity, and noise.

Peter O'Conner waited patiently in a quiet alcove. O'Conner wasn't ex-military or ex-government intelligence--just a man with a talent for gathering information coupled with a conscience that barely existed.

Philogen Pharmaceutique spent millions annually on an extensive array of in-house security to protect trade secrets and patents, but O'Conner reported directly to Vincenti--a set of personal eyes and ears providing the indispensable luxury of being able to implement whatever was needed to protect his interests.

And he was glad to have him.

Five years ago it was O'Conner who stopped a rebellion among a sizable block of Philogen stockholders over Vincenti's decision to expand the company further into Asia. Three years ago, when an American pharmaceutical giant tried a hostile takeover, O'Conner terrorized enough shareholders to prevent any wholesale stock ditching. And, just recently, when Vincenti faced a challenge from his board of directors, O'Conner discovered the dirt used to blackmail enough votes that Vincenti managed not only to keep his job as CEO, but was also reelected chairman.

Vincenti settled into a tooled-leather armchair. A quick glance at the clock etched into the marble behind the concierge's counter confirmed that he needed to be at the restaurant by nine fifteen. As soon as he was comfortable, O'Conner handed him some stapled sheets and said, "That's what we have so far."

He quickly scanned the transcripts of telephone calls and face-to-face discussions--all from listening devices monitoring Irina Zovastina. When finished, he asked, "She's after these elephant medallions?"

"Our surveillance," O'Conner said, "has been enough to know she has sent some of her personal guards after these medallions. The head guy himself, Viktor Tomas, is leading one team. Another team went to Amsterdam. They've been burning buildings all over Europe to mask those thefts."

Vincenti knew all about Zovastina's Sacred Band. More of her obsession with all things Greek. "Do they have the medallions?"

"At least four. They went after two yesterday, but I haven't heard the results."

He was puzzled. "We need to know what she's doing."

"I'm on it. I've managed to bribe a few of the palace staff. Unfortunately, electronic surveillance only works when she stays put. She's constantly on the move. She flew to the China lab earlier."