Once a day I traveled to the clinic in Baghdad and administered intravenous doses at levels specified by Vincenti. At the same time, I obtained blood and tissue samples. From the first injection all twelve showed marked improvement. White cell counts dramatically rose and, with a reemergence of their immune system, secondary infections dissipated as their bodies started to ward off the various diseases. Some, like the cancerous Kaposi outbreaks five of the twelve developed, were beyond a cure, but infections the immune system could effectively handle started to diminish by the beginning of the second day.
By the third day the immune systems in all twelve had reemerged. White cells regenerated. Counts rose. Appetites returned. Weight was gained. HIV viral load dropped to nearly zero. If the injections had continued there was little doubt they would have all been cured, at least of HIV and AIDS. But the injections were stopped. On the fourth day, after Vincenti became convinced the substance worked, he changed the injection solution to saline. All twelve patients quickly relapsed. Their T-cell counts bottomed and HIV regained control. What exactly the testing substance was remains a mystery. The few chemical tests I ran revealed only a slightly alkaline, water-based compound. More out of curiosity than anything else, I microscopically examined a sample and was shocked to discover living organisms in the solution.
He noted that Karyn Walde was listening closely. “This is a report from a man who once worked under me. He wanted to file it with my superiors. Of course, he never did. I paid to have him killed. In Iraq, during the nineteen-eighties, when Saddam ruled supreme, that was fairly easy to do.”
“And why did you kill him?”
“He was nosy. Paying way too much attention to something that did not concern him.”
“That isn’t an answer. Why did he need to die?”
He held up a syringe filled with a clear liquid.
“More of your sleep drug?” she asked.
“No. It’s actually your greatest desire. What you told me in Samarkand you wanted more than anything.”
He paused.
“Life.”
Malone 3 - The Venetian Betrayal
FIFTY-EIGHT
VENICE
2:55 A.M.
MALONE SHOOK HIS HEAD. “ELY LUND IS ALIVE?”
“We don’t know,” Edwin Davis said. “But we’ve suspected Zovastina was being schooled by somebody. Yesterday we learned that Lund was her initial source of information—Henrik told us about him—and the circumstances of his death are certainly suspect.”
“Why does Cassiopeia believe he’s dead?”
“Because she had to believe that,” Thorvaldsen said. “There was no way to prove otherwise. But I suspect a part of her has doubted whether his death was real.”
“Henrik thinks, and I have to agree with him,” Stephanie said, “that Zovastina will try and use the link between Ely and Cassiopeia to her advantage. All of what happened here has to be a shock for her, and paranoia is one of her occupational hazards. Cassiopeia can play off that.”
“This woman is planning a war. She’s not going to worry about Cassiopeia. She needed her to get to the airport. After that, Cassiopeia is nothing but baggage. This is crazy.”
“Cotton,” Stephanie said. “There’s more.”
He waited.
“Naomi’s dead.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sick and tired of friends dying.”
“I want Enrico Vincenti,” she said.
So did he.
He started thinking like a field agent again, fighting hard the desire for quick revenge. “You said there’s something in the treasury. Okay. Show me.”
ZOVASTINA WATCHED THE WOMAN SITTING ACROSS FROM HER IN the jet’s luxury cabin. A personality of courage, no doubt. And like the prisoner from the laboratory in China, this beauty knew fear, yet unlike that weak soul, she also knew how to control it.
They’d not spoken since leaving the basilica, and she’d used the time to gauge her hostage. She was still unsure if the woman’s presence was planned or happenstance. Too much happened too fast.
And the bones.
She’d been certain there’d be something to find, sure enough to risk the journey. Everything had pointed to success. But over two thousand years had passed. Thorvaldsen may have been right. What realistically could remain?
“Why were you in the basilica?” she asked.
“Did you bring me along to chitchat?”
“I brought you to find out what you know.”
This woman reminded her too much of Karyn. That damnable self-confidence, worn like a badge. And a peculiar expression of wariness, which strangely kept Zovastina both interested and off balance.
“Your clothes. Your hair. You look like you’ve been swimming.”
“Your guardsman shoved me into the lagoon.”
That was news. “My guardsman?”
“Viktor. He didn’t tell you? I killed his partner in the museum on Torcello. I wanted to kill him, too.”
“That could prove a challenge.”
“I don’t think so.” The voice was cold, acid, and superior.
“You knew Ely Lund?”
Vitt said nothing.
“You think I killed him?”
“I know you did. He told you about Ptolemy’s riddle. He taught you about Alexander and how the body in the Soma was never Alexander’s. He connected that body to the theft of St. Mark by the Venetians and that’s how you knew to go to Venice. You killed him to make sure he told no one else. Yet he did tell someone. Me.”
“And you told Henrik Thorvaldsen.”
“Among others.”
That was a problem, and Zovastina wondered if there was any connection between this woman and the failed assassination attempt. And Vincenti? Henrik Thorvaldsen was certainly the kind of man who could be a member of the Venetian League. But since the membership roster was highly confidential she had no way of confirming his status. “Ely never mentioned you.”
“He mentioned you.”
This woman was indeed like Karyn. Same haunting allure and frank manner. Defiance attracted Zovastina. Something that took patience and determination to tame.
But it could be done.
“What if Ely isn’t dead?”
Malone 3 - The Venetian Betrayal
FIFTY-NINE
VENICE
MALONE FOLLOWED THE OTHERS INTO THE BASILICA’S SOUTH transept, stopping at a dimly lit doorway surmounted by an elaborate Moorish-style arch. Thorvaldsen produced a key and opened the bronze doors.