Sergei began to vomit while Yorgi crumpled to the floor in convulsions.
"As for myself, my body developed a tolerance to the immediate effects of cyanide. But rest assured, I am experiencing all that you are to a lesser degree, and my doctors inform me that my long-term prognosis is the same as yours. We can't all live forever, can we?" Midas knew he didn't have to bother with theatrics in order to kill his enemies, but somehow he felt it was deeply important to show them that he had not only beaten them through his cleverness, but he was also, in his physical and mental evolution, inherently superior to them. "As your blood pressure lowers and heart rate slows, you will soon experience loss of consciousness, respiratory failure, and finally death. But you died a hero to the people. Too bad they are the wrong people."
The two were already dead by the time Midas had finished what passed for a eulogy. A minute later, he emerged from the chamber. The cyanide dispersed into the air, and two crewmen coughed. He left them to dispose of the bodies and took an elevator topside to the deck.
As he stepped into the sunlight and blinked, he reached for the sunglasses in his shirt pocket and glanced at his hand, which trembled slightly. It was the only visible neurological damage caused by his long-term exposure to cyanide poisoning as a child. So far.
He enjoyed watching death-it made him feel so alive. Like the salt that he now smelled in the sea air. Or the sight of Mercedes sunning topless in her chaise longue that he drank in on the foredeck. He made himself a vodka martini and stretched out next to her golden body, looking forward to tonight's party on Corfu and letting all thoughts of Nazi submarines and American archaeologists fade away like a bad late-night movie.
4
Conrad Yeats stared at the skull of SS General Ludwig von Berg inside his suite at the Andros Palace Hotel in Corfu town overlooking Garitsa Bay. The balcony doors were open wide, and a gentle early-evening breeze blew in, carrying with it music from the town green below.
He took another swig from his bottle of seven-star Metaxa brandy. His leg smarted from the harpoon dart, and his mind still reeled from the events of the morning: the Flammenschwert, the loss of Stavros and the crew, and the image of Serena Serghetti filling what he'd thought were his dying moments.
There was a knock at the door. Conrad put down his Metaxa, picked up a 9mm Glock from under the sofa pillow next to him, and stood up. He moved to the door and looked through the peephole.
It was Andros. Conrad opened the door, and his friend walked in. Two big security types with earpieces and shoulder holsters were posted outside.
"We have a problem," said Andros, closing the door behind him.
Chris Andros III, barely thirty, was always worried. A billionaire shipping heir, Andros had squandered several years after Harvard Business School dating American starlets and hotel heiresses from Paris Hilton to Ivanka Trump. Now a consummate international businessman, he was bent on making up for lost time and owned the Andros Palace Hotel, along with a string of high-end boutique hotels around the Mediterranean and the Middle East. It was Andros who had helped Conrad find the Nausicaa. Andros claimed the sub was named after his grandmother, who, as a young nurse in Nazi-occupied Greece, had been forced to help the Baron of the Black Order recover from his gunshot wound to the head.
"Let me guess," Conrad said. "That superyacht I saw belongs to Sir Roman Midas, and your friends at the airstrip have no idea what was on that private jet of his that took off today or where it was going."
Andros nodded and saw the laptop computer Conrad had used for his research sitting at the bar, its screen filled with news and images of Midas. He seemed about to say something else when he saw the skull of SS General Ludwig von Berg on the table. "That's him?"
"Silver plate and all."
Andros walked over and studied the skull and its metallic dome. He made the sign of the cross. "I cannot tell you how many nightmares this baron gave me growing up. My parents told me stories about what happened to those who crossed the baron-or children who didn't listen to their parents. Being a naughty boy myself, I had nightmares of his skull floating in the air and hounding me to Hades."
Conrad said, "I didn't find a metal briefcase with any papers."
"Of course you wouldn't," Andros said. "Von Berg always liked to say-"
"'It's all in my head,'" Conrad said, completing the sentence. "I know. But what, exactly?"
Andros shrugged. "At least you confirmed he's dead."
"Along with Stavros and the rest of the crew of your boat," Conrad said. "All at the hands of Sir Roman Midas. So now we plot revenge. Isn't that what you Greeks do?"
A cloud formed over Andros's face. "I'm but a humble billionaire, my friend, and barely that. Roman Midas is that many times over, and far more powerful. Especially if he has this weapon you say he took from the Nausicaa. Look outside." He walked out to the open balcony.
"I saw it," said Conrad, limping over with the Metaxa and looking out at Garitsa Bay.
To their right the sun was setting behind the old town, its colonnaded houses dating back to the island's days under British rule. To their left the stars were rising above the old Venetian fortifications.
"Look closely," said Andros.
Conrad set the bottle of Metaxa on the balustrade and picked up a pair of Zeiss binoculars. Beyond the stone fortifications of the Old Fort, the superyacht Midas was anchored in the bay, with small boats ferrying well-dressed men and barely dressed women to and from shore.
"Looks like he's celebrating his catch of the day," Conrad said. "Any way I can get a closer look?"
"Not a chance. Greek coast guard boats are maintaining a perimeter. And the island is crawling with security."
"Why's that?" Conrad swept the deck with the glasses and noticed the chopper had returned.
Andros said, "The Bilderberg Group is holding their annual conference at the Achillion."
Conrad looked at the ornate palace atop a hill opposite the bay.
"Ironically, it was Baron von Berg's headquarters during the war," Andros told him. "Built by the empress of Austria and later bought by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Bavaria as a winter retreat. It's a fanciful place, with whimsical gardens and statues of Greek gods all over the place. I deflowered many a girl there myself."
"What's the structure next to the palace?"
"The House of the Knights," Andros said. "The kaiser built it to house his battalions. There are nice stables, too, for the kaiser's horses. For all its romance, the Achillion has a long history of military staging. It was strafed by Allied planes in 1943 during the baron's stay and then turned into a hospital after the war. Later, it became a casino featured in a James Bond movie."
"And now?"
"It's a museum, used on occasion as a spectacular backdrop for meetings of the G7 nations, the European Union, and apparently, the Bilderberg Group."
The Bilderbergers. Conrad knew a few of them, including his late father, who had attended a couple of the conferences back in the 1990s when he was acting head of the Pentagon's DARPA research and development agency.
Officially, the Bilderberg Group brought together European and American royalty in the form of heads of state, central banks, and multinational corporations to freely discuss the events of the day away from the glare of the press. Unofficially, conspiracy buffs suspected the Bilderbergers set the world's agenda, orchestrating wars and global financial panics at will to advance some totalitarian one-world government that would arise from the ashes.