The priest shook his head. “She did that all by herself.”
“Somebody’s going to get shot in there. Cassiopeia is way beyond the end of her rope. You don’t think gunfire is going to attract the attention of all those police out in the square?”
“The basilica’s walls are several feet thick,” Michener said. “Totally soundproof. No one will disturb them.”
“Stephanie,” Davis said, “we’re not sure why Zovastina took the chance coming here. But it’s obviously important. We thought since she was so intent on coming, we’d accommodate her.”
“I get the point. Out of her sandbox and into ours. But you have no right to place Malone and Cassiopeia in jeopardy.”
“Come now. I didn’t do that. Cassiopeia was already involved, with Henrik Thorvaldsen—who, by the way, involved you. And Malone? He’s a big boy and can do what he wants. He’s here because he wants to be here.”
“You’re fishing for information. Hoping to learn something.”
“And using the only bait we have. She’s the one who wanted a look inside that tomb.”
Stephanie was puzzled. “You seem to know her overall plan. What are you waiting for? Move on her. Bomb her installations. Shut her down. Bring political pressures on her.”
“It’s not that simple. Our information is sketchy. And we have no concrete proof. Certainly not anything she can’t simply deny. You can’t bomb biologicals. And, unfortunately, we don’t know it all. That’s what we need Malone and the others to zero in on for us.”
“Edwin, you don’t know Cotton. He doesn’t like to be played.”
“We know Naomi Johns is dead.”
He’d held that one for the right moment, and the words pounded her gut.
“She was stuffed into a coffin with another man, a small-time hood from Florence. Her neck was broken and he had a bullet to the head.”
“Vincenti?” she asked.
Davis nodded. “Who’s also on the move. He left earlier for the Central Asian Federation. An unscheduled visit.”
She could see he knew even more.
“He just kidnapped a woman that Irina Zovastina has been caring for since last year, a woman that she was once romantically involved with.”
“Zovastina’s a lesbian?”
“Wouldn’t that be a shocker to her People’s Assembly? She and this woman were involved for a long time. But her former lover is dying of AIDS, and Vincenti apparently has a use for her.”
“And there’s a reason you’re allowing Vincenti to do whatever it is he’s doing?”
“He’s up to something, too. And it’s more than just supplying Zovastina with germs and antiagents. It’s more than providing the Venetian League with a safe haven for all their business activities. We want to know what that is.”
She needed to leave.
Another priest appeared in the office doorway and said, “We just heard a shot, from inside the basilica.”
MALONE DOVE BEHIND ONE OF THE DISPLAY CASES AS THE GUARDSMAN fired. He’d tried to hide before the man topped the stairs, but apparently a fleeting glance of his retreat was enough to generate an attack.
The bullet thudded into one of the tables that displayed medieval textiles. The laminated wood deflected the round and allowed Malone the instant he needed to scurry farther into the shadows. The gunshot echoed through the basilica and had surely attracted everyone’s attention.
He scrambled across slick hardwood, taking refuge behind a long exhibit of panel paintings and illuminated manuscript pages.
His gun was ready.
He needed to draw the man farther in.
Which didn’t seem a problem.
Footsteps were coming his way.
ZOVASTINA HEARD THE SHOT FROM THE UPPER NORTH TRANSEPT. She spotted movement to her right, beyond the stone railing, and saw the head of one of her guards.
“I didn’t come alone,” Thorvaldsen said.
She kept her gun aimed at the Dane.
“San Marco is littered with police. Going to be tough for you to leave. You’re a head of state, in a foreign country. Are you really going to shoot me?” He paused. “What would Alexander do?”
She couldn’t decide if he was being serious or patronizing, but she knew the answer. “He’d kill you.”
Thorvaldsen shifted his position, easing to her left. “I disagree. He was a great tactician. And clever. The Gordian knot, for example.”
She called out, “What’s happening up there?”
Her guardsman did not answer.
“In the village of Gordium,” Thorvaldsen was saying, “that complicated knot attached to a wagon. Nobody could untie the thing. A challenge Alexander solved by simply cutting the rope with his sword, then untying it. A simple solution to a complex problem.”
“You talk too much.”
“Alexander did not allow confusion to affect his thinking.”
“Viktor,” she called out.
“Of course,” Thorvaldsen said, “there are many tales to that knot’s story. One says Alexander withdrew a pole connected to the wagon yoke, found the rope ends, and untied it. So who knows?”
She was tiring of this man’s rambles.
Head of state or not.
She pulled the trigger.
Malone 3 - The Venetian Betrayal
FIFTY-FOUR
SAMARKAND
Vincenti remembered the first indication of a problem. Initially, the malady possessed all the characteristics of a cold, then he thought it the flu, but soon the full effects of a viral invasion became apparent.
Contamination.
“Am I going to die?” Charlie Easton screamed from the cot. “I want to know, dammit. Tell me.”
He dabbed Easton ’s sopping brow with a damp rag, like he’d done for the past hour, and quietly said, “You need to calm down.”
“Don’t bullshit me. It’s over, isn’t it?”
Three years they’d worked side by side. No sense hedging. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“Shit. I knew it. You’ve got to get some help.”