He pointed. “Like Alexander the Great, lying in that tomb?”
His lack of belief bothered her. “And how do you know that it’s not? The church has no idea whose body those Venetian merchants stole from Alexandria, over a thousand years ago.”
“So tell me, Minister, what makes you so sure.”
She stared at the marble pillar supporting the grand ceiling overhead and could not resist caressing its sides, wondering if the tale of the saintly body emerging from it was true.
She liked such stories.
So she told the nuncio one of her own.
Eumenes faced a formidable task. As Alexander’s personal secretary, he had been entrusted to make sure that the king was entombed beside Hephaestion. Three months had elapsed since the king’s death and the mummified body still lay in the palace. Most of the other Companions had long since left Babylon , venturing out to take control of their portion of the empire. Finding a suitable corpse to switch proved a challenge, but a man of Alexander’s size, shape, and age was located outside the city, in a village not far away. Eumenes poisoned the man and one of the Egyptian embalmers, who had stayed on the promise of a huge payment, mummified the imposter. Afterward, the Egyptian left the city, but one of Eumenes’ two accomplices killed him. The exchange of corpses happened during a summer storm that battered the city with heavy rains. Once wrapped in the golden cartonnage, dressed in golden robes, wearing a crown, no one could distinguish the two bodies. Eumenes kept Alexander hidden for several months, until after the royal funeral cortege left Babylon, headed for Greece with the imposter. The city then slipped into a lethargy from which it never emerged. Eumenes and his two helpers managed to leave without incident, taking Alexander north, fulfilling the king’s final wish.
Michener said, “So the body here may not be Alexander after all?”
“I don’t recall that I promised to explain myself.”
He smiled. “No, Minister. You didn’t. Let me just say that I enjoyed your story.”
“As entertaining as your fable of the pillar.”
He nodded. “They probably both rank together in credibility.”
But she disagreed. Her story had come from a molecular manuscript discovered through X-ray analysis, images that had lingered for centuries beyond the view of a human eye. Only modern technology had managed to reveal them. Hers was not a fable. Alexander the Great was never entombed in Egypt. He was taken somewhere else, a place Ptolemy, the first Greek pharaoh, ultimately discovered. A place to which the mummy in the tomb ten meters away might lead her.
A man appeared at the iconostasis and said to Michener, “We’re ready.”
The nuncio nodded, then motioned for her to lead the way. “Seems, Minister, it’s time to see whose fable is true.”
Malone 3 - The Venetian Betrayal
FORTY-SIX
VIKTOR WATCHED AS THE WOMAN CLIMBED THE STEPS TO THE boat’s center deck and kept her gun trained on him.
“How’d you like the fire?” she asked.
He threw the throttle into neutral and moved toward her. “You stupid bitch, I’ll show you—”
She raised the pistol. “Do it. Go ahead.”
The eyes that glared back at him were full of hate. “You murder with ease.”
“So do you.”
“And who did I kill?”
“Maybe it was you. Maybe someone else from your Sacred Band. Two months ago. In Samarkand. Ely Lund. His house burned to the ground, thanks to your Greek fire.”
He recalled the task. One he’d personally handled for Zovastina. “You’re the woman from Copenhagen. I saw you at the museum, then at the house.”
“When you tried to kill us.”
“Seems you and your two friends invited that challenge.”
“What do you know about Ely’s death? You’re the head of Zovastina’s Sacred Band.”
“How do you know that?” Then it occurred to him. “The coin I examined in that house. Fingerprints.”
“Smart guy.”
Her mind seemed to be struggling with some painful conviction, so he decided to stoke her emotional furnace. “Ely was murdered.”
“Your doing?”
He noticed a bow and a zippered quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder. She’d shown how cold her heart beat when she barred the museum doors and used the arrows to ignite the building. So he decided not to push her too far.
“I was there.”
“Why did Zovastina want him dead?”
The boat rocked in the unseen swells and he could feel them drifting with the wind. The only illumination came from the faint glow of the instrument panel.
“You, your friends, the man Ely, all of you are involved with things that don’t concern you.”
“I’d say you’re the one who needs to be concerned. I came to kill you both. One down. One to go.”
“And what will you gain?”
“The pleasure of seeing you die.”
Her gun came level.
And fired.
MALONE BROUGHT THE THROTTLE TO NEUTRAL. “YOU HEAR that?”
Stephanie, too, was alert. “Sounded like a gunshot. Nearby.”
He stuck his head beyond the windscreen and noted that the fire on Torcello, about a mile away, burned with new vigor. The mist had lifted, weather here apparently came in quick waves, the visibility now relatively reasonable. Boat lights crisscrossed paths in all directions.
His ears searched for sound.
Nothing.
He powered up the engines.
CASSIOPEIA AIMED AT THE BULKHEAD, SENDING THE BULLET within inches of Viktor’s leg. “Ely never hurt a soul. Why did she have to kill him?” She kept the gun trained on him. “Tell me. Why?” The question came out one word at a time, through clenched teeth, more pleading than angry.
“Zovastina is a woman on a mission. Your Ely interfered.”
“He was a historian. How could he have been a threat?” She hated herself for referring to him in the past tense.
Water lapped against the low-riding hull and the wind continued to batter the boat.