“You can’t expect me to believe that.”
“There are people within my government who would like to see me gone. Unfortunately, treachery is part of our political way. They fear me and knew Ely was assisting me. So they ordered him killed, just as they’d ordered others, who were my allies, eliminated.”
Cassiopeia remained skeptical.
“Ely is HIV positive.”
That truth arrested Cassiopeia’s attention. “How do you know?”
“He told me. I’ve been supplying him with his medications these past two months. Unlike you, he trusts me.”
Cassiopeia knew that Ely would have never told anyone that he was infected. Only Henrik and Ely knew about her malady.
Now she was confused.
But she wondered.
Had that been the whole idea?
MALONE CARESSED THE SMOOTH PATINA OF THE HEART AMULET, his fingers tracing the outline of the bird that represented the Egyptian phoenix. “Ptolemy said to divide the phoenix.”
He shook the artifact, listening.
Nothing moved inside.
Thorvaldsen seemed to understand what he was about to do. “That thing is over two thousand years old.”
Malone could not care less. Cassiopeia was in trouble and the world may soon be experiencing a biological war. Ptolemy had penned a riddle that obviously led to where Alexander the Great had wanted to be entombed. The Greek warrior-turned-pharaoh apparently had been privy to good information. And if he said divide the phoenix, then Malone was damn well going to do it.
He pounded the amulet, bottom-side first, into the marble floor.
It recoiled and about a third of the scarab broke away, like a nut cracking. He settled the pieces on the floor and examined them.
Something spilled out from the sides.
The others knelt with him.
He pointed and said, “The inside was cleaved, ready to split, and packed with sand.”
He lifted the larger chunk and emptied the granules.
Edwin Davis pointed. “Look.”
Malone saw it, too. He gently brushed the sand aside and spotted a cylindrical object, maybe a half inch in diameter. Then he noticed that it wasn’t a cylinder at all.
A strip of gold.
Coiled.
He carefully tipped the tiny bundle onto its side and spotted random letters etched into one side.
“Greek,” he said.
Stephanie bent down closer. “And look how thin that foil is. Like leaf.”
“What is it?” Davis asked.
Malone’s mind starting clicking the final pieces into place. The next part of Ptolemy’s riddle now became important. Life provides the measure of the grave. Be wary, for there is but one chance of success. He reached into his pocket and found the medallion Stephanie had shown him. “Concealed on this are microletters. ZH. And we know Ptolemy minted these medallions, when he created the riddle.”
He noticed a tiny symbol—
—on one side and instantly knew the connection. “That same symbol was on the manuscript you showed me. At the bottom, below the riddle.” He saw the wording clearly in his mind. Life provides the measure of the true grave.
“How do the elephant medallions and that strip of gold connect to each other?” Davis asked.
“To know that,” Malone said, “you have to know what that strip is.”
He saw that Stephanie was reading him.
“And you do?” she asked.
He nodded. “I know exactly what this is.”
VIKTOR CUT THE THROTTLE AND ALLOWED THE BOAT TO DRIFT back toward the quay at San Marco. He’d taken Michener from the basilica, straight to where he’d docked, thinking the safest place to wait for Zovastina’s departure was on water. There he’d stayed, staring at the floodlit domes and pinnacles, the pink-and-white doge’s palace, the campanile, and rows of antique buildings, solid and high, dotted with balconies and windows, all matted by the black yawn of night. He’d be glad when he was gone from Italy.
Nothing here had gone right.
“It’s time you and I had a talk,” Michener said.
He’d kept the priest in the boat’s forward cabin, alone, while he waited for Zovastina’s call, and Michener had sat casually and stayed silent.
“What could we have to talk about?”
“Perhaps the fact that you’re an American spy.”
Malone 3 - The Venetian Betrayal
SIXTY
CENTRAL ASIAN FEDERATION
VINCENTI ALLOWED KARYN WALDE TIME TO DIGEST WHAT HE’D said. He remembered the moment when he first realized that he’d discovered the cure for HIV.
“I told you about the old man in the mountains—”
“Is that where you found it?” she asked, anticipation in her voice.
“I think refound would be more accurate.”
He’d never spoken of this to anyone. How could he have? So he found himself eager to explain. “It’s ironic how the simplest things can solve the most complex problems. In the early 1900s, beriberi flourished all over China, killing hundreds of thousands. You know why? To make the rice more marketable, merchants started polishing the kernels, which removed thiamine—vitamin B1—from the hull. Without thiamine in their diet, beriberi passed unchecked through the population. When the polishing stopped, the thiamine took care of the disease.
“The bark from the Pacific yew tree is an effective cancer treatment. It’s no cure, but it can slow down the disease. Simple bread mold led to highly effective antibiotics that kill bacterial infections. And something as basic as a high-fat, ketogenic diet can actually arrest epilepsy in some children. Simple stuff. I found that same principle true for AIDS.”
“What was it in that plant you chewed that worked?” she asked.
“Not it. They.”
He saw her fear subside, as what might have been a threat was rapidly changing into salvation.