The sun had just topped the forest to the east. Her palace had once been the residence of the khans who ruled the region until the late nineteenth century, when the Russians had invaded. Thirty rooms, rich in Uzbek furniture and Oriental porcelain. What was now the stables had then housed the harem. Thanks to the gods those days were over.
She sucked a deep breath, which carried the sweet scent of a new day. “Good playing,” the attendant said.
She acknowledged his encouragement with a nod and prepared to enter the field.
But she could not help wondering.
What was happening in Denmark?
Malone 3 - The Venetian Betrayal
FIVE
COPENHAGEN
VIKTOR TOMAS STOOD IN THE SHADOWS, ACROSS THE CANAL, AND watched the Greco-Roman museum burn. He turned to his partner but did not speak the obvious.
Problems.
It was Rafael who had attacked the intruder, then dragged the unconscious body into the museum. Somehow, after their surreptitious entrance, the front door had become ajar and, from the second-floor railing, he’d spotted a shadow approaching the stoop. Rafael, working on the ground floor, had instantly reacted, positioning himself just inside. True, he should have simply waited and seen what the visitor’s intentions had been. But instead, he’d yanked the shadow inside and popped the side of the man’s head with one of the sculptures.
“The woman,” Rafael said. “She was waiting, with a gun. That can’t be good.”
He agreed. Long dark hair, shapely, dressed in a tight-fitting body-suit. As the building caught fire, she’d emerged from an alley and stood near the canal. When the man appeared in the window, she’d produced a gun and shot out the glass.
The man, too, was a problem.
Fair-haired, tall, sinewy. He’d propelled a chair through the glass then leaped out with surprising agility, as if he’d done that before. He’d instantly grabbed the woman and they’d both plunged into the canal.
The fire department had arrived within minutes, just as the two emerged from the water and blankets were wrapped around them. The turtles had clearly performed their tasks. Rafael had christened them with the label since, in many ways, they resembled turtles, even possessing the ability to right themselves. Thankfully, no remnant of the devices would remain. Each was made of combustible materials that vaporized in the intense heat of their destruction. True, any investigator would quickly label the blaze arson, but proof of the method and mechanism would be impossible to determine.
Except that the man had survived.
“Will he be trouble?” Rafael asked.
Viktor continued to watch the firemen battle the blaze. The man and woman sat on the brick parapet, still wrapped in their blankets.
They seemed to know each other.
That worried him more.
So he answered Rafael’s inquiry the only way he could.
“No doubt.”
MALONE HAD RECOVERED HIS WITS. CASSIOPEIA HUDDLED IN A blanket beside him. Only remnants of the museum’s walls remained and nothing of its inside. The old building had burned quickly. Firemen continued to mind the blaze, concentrating on confining the destruction. So far, none of the adjacent buildings had been affected.
The night air reeked of soot, along with another smell—bitter, yet sweet—similar to what he’d inhaled while trapped inside. Smoke continued to drift skyward, filtering the bright stars. A stout man in dingy yellow firefighting gear waddled over for the second time. One of the crew chiefs. A city policeman had already taken a statement from both he and Cassiopeia.
“Like you said about the sprinklers,” the chief said in Danish. “Our water only seemed to spark it up.”
“How’d you finally control it?” Malone asked.
“When the tanker ran out of juice, we dipped our hoses into the canal and pumped straight from it. That worked.”
“Salt water?” All of Copenhagen’s canals connected to the sea.
The chief nodded. “Stops it cold.”
He wanted to know, “Find anything in the building?”
“No little machines, like you told the police. But that place was so hot it melted the marble statues.” The chief ran a hand through his wet hair. “That’s a powerful fuel. We’ll need your clothes. May be the only way to determine its composition.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “I took a dip in that canal, too.”
“Good point.” The chief shook his head. “The arson investigators are going to love this one.”
As the fireman lumbered off, Malone faced Cassiopeia and plunged into an interrogation. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“You weren’t supposed to be here till tomorrow morning.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
Wet tangles of thick dark hair hung past her shoulders and roughly framed her alluring face. She was a Spanish Muslim, living in southern France. Bright, rich, and cocky—an engineer and a historian. But her presence in Copenhagen, a day earlier than she’d told him, meant something. Also, she’d come armed and dressed for battle—dark leather pants and a tight-fitting leather jacket. He wondered if she was going to be difficult or cooperative.
“Lucky I was here to save your hide,” she said to him.
He couldn’t decide if she was serious or teasing him. “How did you know my hide needing saving?”
“Long story, Cotton.”
“I’ve got the time. I’m retired.”
“I’m not.”
He heard the bitter edge in her voice and sensed something. “You knew that building was going to burn, didn’t you?”
She did not look at him, just stared off across the canal. “I actually wanted it to burn.”
“Care to explain that one?”
She sat silently, absorbed in thought. “I was here. Earlier. I watched while two men broke into the museum. I saw them grab you. I needed to follow them, but couldn’t.” She paused. “Because of you.”
“Who were they?”
“The men who left those machines.”
She’d listened as he’d given his statement to the police, but he’d sensed the whole time that she already knew the story. “How about we cut the crap and you tell me what’s going on. I almost got killed over whatever it is you’re doing.”
“You should ignore open doors in the night.”