He bought his Grand Canalvilla with the first profits from his fledgling pharmaceutical company. Only fitting that both he and his corporation, now valued in the billions of euros, be headquartered here.
He especially loved Venice in the early morning, when nothing could be heard but the human voice. A morning walk from his palazzo on the canal, to his favorite ristorante on the square at Campo del Leon, constituted his only attempt at exercise. But it was one he couldn’t avoid. Feet or boat were the only means of transportation since vehicles were banned in Venice.
Today he walked with a renewed vigor. The problem with the Florentine had worried him. With that now resolved he could turn his attention to the final few hurdles. Nothing satisfied him more than a well-executed plan. Unfortunately, few were ever so.
Especially when deceit proved necessary.
The morning air no longer carried winter’s unpleasant chill. Spring had clearly returned to northern Italy. The wind seemed gentler, too, the sky a lovely salmon, brightened by a sun emerging from the eastern ocean.
He wove a path through the twisting streets, narrow enough that carrying an open umbrella would have presented a challenge, and crossed several of the bridges that tacked the city together. He passed clothing and stationery stores, a wine shop, a shoe dealer, and a couple of well-stocked groceries, all closed at this early hour.
He came to the end of the street and entered the square.
On one end rose an antique tower, once a church, now a theater. At the other end stood the campanile of a Carmine chapel. Between stretched houses and shops that shimmered with age and self-satisfaction. He didn’t particularly like the campos. They tended to feel dry, old, and urban. Different from the canal fronts where palazzos pressed forward, like people in a crowd jostling for air.
He studied the empty square. Everything neat and orderly.
Just as he liked it.
He was a man possessed of wealth, power, and a future. He lived in one of the world’s great cities, his lifestyle befitting a person of prestige and tradition. His father, a nondescript soul who instilled in him a love of science, told him as a child to take life as it came. Good advice. Life was about reaction and recovery. One was either in, just coming out of, or about to find trouble. The trick was knowing which state you were in and acting accordingly.
He’d just come out of trouble.
And was about to find more.
For the past two years he’d headed the Council of Ten, which governed the Venetian League. Four hundred and thirty-two men and women whose ambitions were stymied by excessive government regulation, restrictive trade laws, and politicians who chipped away at corporate bottom lines. America and the European Union were by far the worst. Every day some new impediment sapped profits. League members spent billions trying to avert more regulation. And while one set of politicos were quietly influenced to help, another set were intent on making a name for themselves by prosecuting the helpers.
A frustrating and never-ending cycle.
Which was why the League had decided to create a place where business could not only flourish, but rule. A place similar to the original Venetian republic, which, for centuries, was governed by men possessed of the mercantile ability of Greeks and the audacity of Romans—entrepreneurs who were at once businessmen, soldiers, governors, and statesmen. A city-state that ultimately became an empire. Periodically, the Venetian republic had formed leagues with other city-states—alliances that ensured survival in numbers—and the idea worked well. Their modern incarnation expounded a similar philosophy. He’d worked hard for his fortune and agreed with something Irina Zovastina had once told him. Everybody loves a thing more if it has cost him trouble.
He traversed the square and approached the café, which opened each day at six A.M. simply for him. Morning was his time of day. His mind seemed most alert before noon. He entered the ristorante and acknowledged the owner. “Emilio, might I ask a favor? Tell my guests that I’ll return shortly. There’s something I must do. It won’t take long.”
The man smiled and nodded, assuring there’d be no problem.
He bypassed his corporate officers waiting for him in the adjacent dining room and stepped through the kitchen. An aroma of broiling fish and fried eggs teased his nostrils. He stopped a moment and admired what was simmering on the stove, then left the building through a rear exit and found himself in another of Venice’s innumerable alleys, this one darkened by tall brick buildings thick with droppings.
Three Inquisitors waited a few meters away. He nodded and they walked single file. At an intersection they turned right and followed another alley. He noticed a familiar stink—half drainage, half decaying stone—the pall of Venice. They stopped at the rear entrance to a building that housed a dress shop on its ground floor and apartments on its upper three stories. He knew they were now diagonally across the square from the café.
Another Inquisitor waited for them at the door.
“She’s there?” Vincenti asked.
The man nodded.
He gestured and three of the men entered the building, while the fourth waited outside. Vincenti followed them up a flight of metal stairs. On the third floor they stopped outside one of the apartment doors. He stood down the hall as guns were drawn and one of the men prepared to kick the door.
He nodded.
Shoe met wood and the door burst inward.
The men rushed inside.
A few seconds later one of his men signaled. He stepped into the apartment and closed the door.
Two Inquisitors held a woman. She was slender, fair-haired, and not unattractive. A hand was clamped over her mouth, a gun barrel pressed to her left temple. She was frightened, but calm. Expected, since she was a pro.
“Surprised to see me?” he asked. “You’ve been watching for nearly a month.”
Her eyes offered no response.