The Venetian Betrayal (20 page)

The water bus had delivered them from San Marco to Torcello in a laborious chug across the Venetian lagoon. He'd chosen public transportation as the most inconspicuous way to reconnoiter tonight's target.

They followed a crowd of camera-clad tourists making their way toward the island's two famed churches, a sidewalklike street flanking a languid canal. The path ended near a low huddle of stone buildings that accommodated a couple of restaurants, a few tourist vendors, and an inn. He'd already studied the island's layout and knew that Torcello was a minuscule strip of land that supported artichoke farms and a few opulent residences. Two ancient churches and a restaurant were its claims to fame.

They'd flown from Hamburg, with a stop in Munich. After here, they would head back to the Federation and home, their European foray completed. Per the Supreme Minister's orders, Viktor needed to obtain the seventh medallion before midnight, as he was due at the basilica in San Marco by one A . M
.

Zovastina's coming to Venice was highly unusual.

Whatever she'd been anticipating had apparently started.

But at least this theft should be easy.

MALONE STARED DOWN AT THE ARCHITECTURAL ELEGANCE OF the island's bell tower, a mass of brick and marble ingeniously held together by pilasters and arches. A hundred and fifty feet tall, like a talisman in the waste, the path to the top, on ramps that wound upward along the exterior walls, had reminded him of the Round Tower in Copenhagen. They'd paid the six euros admission and made the climb to study the island from its highest point.

He stood at a chest-high wall and stared out open arches, noting how the land and water seemed to pursue each other in a tight embrace. White herons soared skyward from a grassy marsh. Orchards and artichoke fields loomed quiet. The somber scene seemed like a ghost town from the American West.

Below, the basilica stood, nothing warm or welcoming to it, a makeshift barnlike feel to its design, as if uncompleted. Malone had read in the guidebook that it was built in a hurry by men who thought the world would end in the year 1000.

"It's a great allegory," he said to Cassiopeia. "A Byzantine cathedral right beside a Greek church. East and West, side by side. Just like Venice."

In front of the two churches stretched a grass-infested piazzetta. Once the center of city life, now no more than a village green. Dusty paths stretched outward, a couple leading to a second canal, more winding toward distant farmhouses. Two other stone buildings fronted the piazzetta, both small, maybe forty by twenty feet, two-storied, with gabled roofs. Together they comprised the Museo di Torcello. The guidebook noted they were once palazzos, occupied centuries ago by wealthy merchants, but were now owned by the state.

Cassiopeia pointed at the building on the left. "The medallion is in there, on the second floor. Not much of a museum. Mosaic fragments, capitals, a few paintings, some books, and coins. Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artifacts."

He faced her. She continued to stare out over the island. To the south loomed the outline of Venice central, its campaniles reaching for a darkening sky, the hint of a storm rising. "What are we doing here?"

She did not immediately answer. He reached over and touched her arm. She shuddered at the contact, but did not resist. Her eyes watered and he wondered if Torcello's sad atmosphere had reminded her of memories better left forgotten.

"This place is all gone," she muttered.

They were alone at the top of the tower, the lazy silence disturbed only by footfalls, voices, and laughter from others, below, making the climb.

"So is Ely," he said.

"I miss him." She bit her lip.

He wondered if her burst of sincerity implied a growing trust. "There's nothing you can do."

"I wouldn't say that."

He did not like the sound of her words. "What do you have in mind?"

She did not answer and he did not press. Instead, he stared with her across the church rooftops. A few stalls selling lace, glassware, and souvenirs flanked a short lane leading from the village to the grassy piazzetta. A group of visitors were making their way toward the churches. Among them, Malone spotted a familiar face.

Viktor.

"I see him, too," Cassiopeia said.

People arrived at the top, in the bell chamber.

"The man beside him is the one who slashed the car tires," she said.

They watched as the two men headed straight for the museum.

"We need to get down from here," he said. "They might decide to check the high ground, too. Remember they think we're dead."

"Like this whole place," she muttered.

Chapter
THIRTY-FIVE

VENICE

:20 P
. M
.

STEPHANIE HOPPED FROM THE WATER TAXI AND MADE HER WAY through the tight warren of close-quartered streets. She'd asked directions at her hotel and was following them the best she could, but Venice was a vast labyrinth. She was deep into the Dorsoduro district, a quiet, picturesque neighborhood long associated with wealth, following busy, alleylike thoroughfares lined with bustling commerce.

Ahead, she spotted the villa. Rigidly symmetrical, casting an air of lost distinction, its beauty sprang from a pleasing contrast of redbrick walls veined with emerald vines, highlighted with marble trim.

She stepped through a wrought-iron gate and announced her presence with a knock on the front door. An older woman with an airy face, dressed in a servant's uniform, answered.

"I'm here to see Mr. Vincenti," Stephanie said. "Tell him I bring greetings from President Danny Daniels."

The woman appraised her with a curious look and she wondered if the name of the president of the United States struck a chord. So, to be sure, she handed the attendant a folded slip of paper. "Give this to him."

The woman hesitated, then closed the door.

Stephanie waited.

Two minutes later the door reopened.

Wider this time.

And she was invited in.

"Fascinating introduction," Vincenti said to her.

They sat in a rectangular room beneath a gilded ceiling, the room's elegance highlighted by the dull gleam of lacquer that had surely coated the furniture for centuries. She sniffed the dank fragrance and thought she detected the odor of cats mixed with a scent of lemon polish.

Her host held up the note. "'The President of the United States sent me.' Quite a statement." He seemed pleased at his perceived importance.

"You're an interesting man, Mr. Vincenti. Born in upstate New York. A U
. S
. citizen. August Rothman." She shook her head. "Enrico Vincenti? You changed the name. I'm curious, why?"

He shrugged. "It's all about image."

"It does sound more," she hesitated, "continental."

"Actually, a lot of thought was given to that name. Enrico came from Enrico Dandolo, thirty-ninth doge of Venice, in the late twelfth century. He led the Fourth Crusade that conquered Constantinople and ended the Byzantine Empire. Quite a man. Legendary, you might say.

"Vincenti I took from another twelfth-century Venetian. A Benedictine monk and nobleman. When his entire family was wiped out in the Aegean Sea, he applied for and got permission to dispense with his monastic vows. He married and founded five new lines of his family from his children. Quite resourceful. I admired his flexibility."

"So you became Enrico Vincenti. Venetian aristocracy."

He nodded. "Sounds great, no?"

"Want me to continue on what I know?"

He motioned his assent.

"You're sixty years old. Bachelor of science from the University of North Carolina, in biology. Master's degree from Duke University. A doctorate in virology from the University of East Anglia, the John Innes Centre, in England. Recruited there by a Pakistani pharmaceutical firm with ties to the Iraqi government. You worked for the Iraqis early on, with their initial biological weapons program, just after Saddam assumed power in 1979. At Salman Pak, north of Baghdad, operated by the Technical Research Center, which oversaw their germ search. Though Iraq signed the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972, Saddam never ratified it. You stayed with them until 1990, just before the first Gulf War went to shit in a handbasket for the Iraqis. That's when they shut everything down and you hauled ass."

"All correct, Ms. Nelle, or do I get to call you Stephanie?"

"Whatever you prefer."

"Okay, Stephanie, why am I so interesting to the president of the United States?"

"I wasn't finished."

He motioned again for her to continue.

"Anthrax, botulinum, cholera, plague, ricin, salmonella, even smallpox--you and your colleagues dabbled with them all."

"Didn't your people in Washington finally figure out that was all fiction?"

"May have been in 200

when Bush invaded, but it sure as hell wasn't in 1990. Then, it was real. I particularly liked camel pox. You assholes thought it the perfect weapon. Safer than smallpox to handle in the lab, but a great ethnic weapon since Iraqis were generally immune thanks to all of the camels they've handled through the centuries. But for Westerners and Israelis, another matter entirely. Quite a deadly zoonosis."

"More fiction," Vincenti said, and she wondered how many times he'd voiced the same lie with similar conviction.

"Too many documents, photos, and witnesses to make that cover story stick," she said. "That's why you disappeared from Iraq, after 1990."

"Get real, Stephanie, nobody in the eighties thought biological warfare was even a weapon of mass destruction. Washington could not have cared less. Saddam, at least, saw its potential."

"We know better now. It's quite a threat. In fact, many believe that the first biological war won't be a cataclysmic exchange. It'll be a low-intensity, regional conflict. A rogue state versus its neighbor. No global consensual morality will apply. Just local hatred and indiscriminate killing. Similar to the Iran/Iraq War of the nineteen-eighties where some of your bugs were actually used on people."

"Interesting theory, but isn't that your president's problem? Why do I care?"

She decided to change tack. "Your company, Philogen Pharmaceutique, is quite a success story. You personally own two point four million shares of its stock, representing about forty-two percent of the company, the single largest shareholder. An impressive conglomerate. Assets at just under ten billion euros, which includes wholly owned subsidiaries that manufacture cosmetics, toiletries, soap, frozen foods, and a chain of European department stores. You bought the company fifteen years ago for practically nothing--"

"I'm sure your research showed it was nearly bankrupt at the time."

"Which begs the question--how and why did you manage to both buy and save it?"

"Ever hear of public offerings? People invested."

"Not really. You funneled most of the start-up capital into it. About forty million dollars, by our estimate. Quite a nest egg you amassed from working for a rogue government."

"The Iraqis were generous. They also had a superb health plan and a wonderful retirement system."

"Many of you profited. We monitored a lot of key microbiologists back then. You included."

He seemed to catch the edge in her voice. "Is there a point to this visit?"

"You're quite the businessman. From all accounts, an excellent entrepreneur. But your corporation is overextended. Your debt service is straining every resource you possess, yet you continue onward."

Edwin Davis had briefed her well.

"Daniels looking to invest? What's left, three years on his term? Tell him I could find a place on my board of directors for him."

She reached into her pocket and tossed him the jacketed elephant medallion. He caught the offering with a surprising quickness.

"You know what that is?"

He studied the decadrachm. "Looks like a man fighting an elephant. Then a man standing, holding a spear. I'm afraid history is not my strong point."

"Germs are your specialty."

He appraised her with a look of conviction.

"When the UN weapons inspectors questioned you, after the first Gulf War, about Iraq's biological weapons program, you told them nothing had been developed. Lots of research, but the whole venture was underfunded and poorly managed."

"All those toxins you mentioned? They're bulky, difficult to store, cumbersome, and nearly impossible to control. Not practical weapons. I was right."

"Smart guys like you can conquer those problems."

"I'm not that good."

"That's what I said, too. But others disagree."

"You shouldn't listen to them."

She ignored his challenge. "Within three years after you left Iraq, Philogen Pharmaceutique was up and running and you were a member of the Venetian League." She watched to see if her words spurred a reaction. "That membership comes with a price. Quite an expensive one, I'm told."

"I don't believe it's illegal for men and women to enjoy one another's company."