“Tell me,” she whispered, bending down and putting out her cigarette right in front of his face, “if Water is the first symbol.”
“What?”
“You heard me, and you know what I’m asking. Water. Is it the first symbol?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re mad.”
“And you’re dead if you don’t tell me the truth.” She stood and placed her spiked heel against his neck. “Is it Water? Or Fire?” Nina held her breath. She needed him to confirm the first symbol to validate what their other informant had given up. Torture was never perfectly reliable, but in that case her boss had felt reasonably certain of the information they had elicited. But not certain enough. He wanted a second confirmation.
“The first code…” she repeated, pushing down on his neck, “is it Fire? Is it Air? Earth?”
Ullman coughed. His legs twitched, his arms flayed about in his pooling blood. “I told you, I don’t—”
She increased the weight on his neck.
“Aaaaaah — all right, all right!” he hissed, bringing his hand to his throat as Nina eased the stifling pressure. “It’s Water… Water! But you won’t get in. You don’t know the rest of the sequence. No one does.”
“Don’t be coy,” Nina said. “Of course you know the sequence. What you don’t know is how to bypass the defenses.”
“And you do?”
“We will, soon.” Very soon, if Morpheus’s remote viewers continued with their hits, or if Caleb found his sight. But she guessed that the Keepers were in the same boat as far as the scroll’s recovery — hoping for a miracle. She tapped the barrel of her Beretta on the floor in front of his nose. “So you say it’s Water. What if I said I don’t believe you?”
“I would say I don’t care. I already know my fate.”
“Such pessimism.” Nina sat down again. “How long have you been here in Naples, Mr. Ullman? Well, not you, but you know what I mean — the Keepers. How long have you known?”
“About the scroll?” Ullman gave a wheezing chuckle. “Be serious. As soon as the Villa was rediscovered, we put a man on the inside.”
“All that time,” she clucked, “and nothing to show for it.” She sighed and shook her head in disappointment. Caleb probably had gotten closer to it in his one lifetime than six generations of Keepers. She checked her watch. “Well, Mr. Ullman, it’s been a pleasure. Your leader claims each of you has a successor lined up. In your case, I hope you haven’t delayed that obligation.”
Ullman laughed again as he looked up at her with a bland grimace. “See you soon.”
Nina frowned, tightened the silencer on her gun, aimed and fired, punching a hole through his forehead. She stood and contemplated the body, replaying the conversation, weighing his words, his gestures, debating whether his answer was reliable. In the end, she decided it didn’t matter. She was thorough in these matters of life and death. If a second independent confirmation was insufficient, she would simply seek another.
13
They returned to Alexandria just before midnight. Exhausted, the others retired upstairs to their rooms. Caleb fully intended to do the same, but there was something he had to do first. Today, after all, was the anniversary.
Phoebe.
Eight years ago.
Looking ahead at the others, Caleb saw his mother who, if she had even thought of today’s importance, had given no indication. She was in the thick of the group, Waxman at her side, still talking, going over plans and relating visions.
Caleb headed to the hotel’s lounge, where subdued techno music droned in contrast to an elegant mahogany-walled interior lit with evenly spaced blue-flamed oil lamps. He wanted to call his sister, needed to hear her voice, wanted to apologize, again. He checked his cell phone; the battery was almost dead. There might be enough juice, but in his head whirled an uncompromising swarm of thoughts about Alexandria, the Pharos, Caesar and Herculaneum; the impossibility of their task of recovering a vulcanized scroll from the ashes of a two-thousand-year-old library; and discovering the entrance to something that may never have even existed, except in legend.
He reached the bar, a smooth black surface that reminded him of the tomb door back in Belize. He stood before it, staring at the surface as if paralyzed.
“Martini,” said a voice behind him, “and whatever this guy’s having.” Caleb spun around as Nina slid into the seat beside him, crossed her legs and smiled. “Good idea, ditching that crowd.” She looked fatigued yet infused with an indefinite sense of vigor, a nervous hyperactivity streaming through her every muscle, as if she had just been on a thrill ride and the high hadn’t yet worn off.
Caleb shook off the chill and leaned against the bar. The large bald man making Nina’s martini gave him a questioning glance. “The same, I guess,” Caleb said, then turned to Nina, whose penetrating stare made him so weak he leaned back and slipped into the chair. Cool air from the overhead vents breathed fresh life into his lungs, and seemed to pull out the heat and humidity.
“Needed a little drink, I suppose. Been a long day.”
“And it’s not over yet.” Nina held up her glass. The vodka glowed a cerulean blue with a lamp shining behind it. When Caleb received his drink, she said, “A toast?”
“I love toast,” Caleb said, wearily. He felt stupid, but relieved when she smiled. “Raisin, Texas, wheat…”
She leaned forward until he could smell her perfume — a deep mix of carnal power and animalistic subtlety. She clinked her glass against his. “How about… to us?”
“Us?”
“To us,” she whispered, “you and me. To us, finding the treasure first. Finding it and then getting the hell out of here.”
Caleb lowered his glass. “How?”
“Upstairs.” She drained her glass. “Come with me, I know a way.”
“A way to what?” Caleb choked as he drank too much too fast, trying to keep up with Nina.
“A way to get the mind working.” Her green eyes sparkled. “It’s a tantric thing, a combination of meditation and physical exhaustion that’s been known to—”
“Wait.” Caleb put his hand on her wrist. “I don’t want any more visions. Especially tonight, of all nights, I can’t—”
Nina gripped his hand, and then settled her other hand on his thigh, squeezing slightly. She whispered, “I know, Caleb. I know.”
“What do you—?”
“All about you… and Phoebe. I came down here because I know what day this is, and I know what it is that you’re facing tonight…”
Caleb’s heart was pounding, his flesh chilled in the cool air, his temples throbbing, as he stared dumbly into Nina’s eyes.
“… something you shouldn’t have to face alone.”
He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it had happened, at what point in the candle-lit darkness of Nina’s suite the visions had actually exploded, blossoming like a pinwheel fireworks display, because he had long since lost track of time.
The memories blurred together: the door opening, Nina pulling him inside, both stumbling into the room, her fingers tearing at the buttons of his shirt, his already under her skirt, sliding under a silk barrier. Their lips mashed tight, tongues in a desperate duel. The bed had been nothing more than a prop to be used much later, after the walls, the couches, the tables and the floor had been put to punishing use. Nina had relentlessly and skillfully pushed him to further and further acts of extreme physical exertion, exploits he had never even contemplated, positions so exotic his muscles screamed even as the pleasure intensified.
And when they couldn’t move any more, she coaxed him gently into a mode of breathing and visualization. Her legs locked around his back, they sat up, face to face, breath to breath, eye to eye.