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.”
Malone 3 - The Venetian Betrayal
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 planning a war.”
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.
He again noticed the trail leading up the stark mountain and the ground conduit. Afternoon heat danced in waves along the rock face. He thought again of Ptolemy’s riddle. Climb the god-built walls. When you reach the attic, gaze into the tawny eye, and dare to find the distant refuge.
God-built walls.
Mountains.
He decided they could not keep hovering.
So he slid off the headset and grabbed his phone.
STEPHANIE WATCHED THE MAN KNEELING ON THE FLOOR SOB UNCONTROLLABLY, as Zovastina counted to three.
“Please, God,” he said. “Don’t kill me.”
The rifle was still pointed at him and Zovastina said, “Tell me what I want to know.”
“Vincenti was right. What he said in the lab. They live in the mountain behind here, up the trail. In a green pool. He has power and lights there. He found them a long time ago.” He was speaking fast, the words blurring together in a frenzy of confession. “He told me everything. I helped him change them. I know how they work.”
“What are they?” she calmly asked.
“Bacteria. Archaea. A unique form of life.”
Stephanie heard a change in tone, as if the man sensed a new ally.
“They eat viruses. Destroy them, but they don’t hurt us. That’s why we did all those clinical trials. To see how they work on your viruses.”
Zovastina seemed to consider what she was hearing. Stephanie heard the reference to Vincenti and wondered if this house belonged to him.
“Lyndsey,” Zovastina said, “you’re talking nonsense. I don’t have time—”
“Vincenti lied to you about the antiagents.”