VIKTOR STEPPED OFF THE VAPORETTO WITH RAFAEL FOLLOWING.
The water bus had delivered them from San Marco to Torcello in a laborious chug across the Venetian lagoon. He’d chosen public transportation as the most inconspicuous way to reconnoiter tonight’s target.
They followed a crowd of camera-clad tourists making their way toward the island’s two famed churches, a sidewalklike street flanking a languid canal. The path ended near a low huddle of stone buildings that accommodated a couple of restaurants, a few tourist vendors, and an inn. He’d already studied the island’s layout and knew that Torcello was a minuscule strip of land that supported artichoke farms and a few opulent residences. Two ancient churches and a restaurant were its claims to fame.
They’d flown from Hamburg, with a stop in Munich. After here, they would head back to the Federation and home, their European foray completed. Per the Supreme Minister’s orders, Viktor needed to obtain the seventh medallion before midnight, as he was due at the basilica in San Marco by one A.M.
Zovastina’s coming to Venice was highly unusual.
Whatever she’d been anticipating had apparently started.
But at least this theft should be easy.
MALONE STARED DOWN AT THE ARCHITECTURAL ELEGANCE OF the island’s bell tower, a mass of brick and marble ingeniously held together by pilasters and arches. A hundred and fifty feet tall, like a talisman in the waste, the path to the top, on ramps that wound upward along the exterior walls, had reminded him of the Round Tower in Copenhagen. They’d paid the six euros admission and made the climb to study the island from its highest point.
He stood at a chest-high wall and stared out open arches, noting how the land and water seemed to pursue each other in a tight embrace. White herons soared skyward from a grassy marsh. Orchards and artichoke fields loomed quiet. The somber scene seemed like a ghost town from the American West.
Below, the basilica stood, nothing warm or welcoming to it, a makeshift barnlike feel to its design, as if uncompleted. Malone had read in the guidebook that it was built in a hurry by men who thought the world would end in the year 1000.
“It’s a great allegory,” he said to Cassiopeia. “A Byzantine cathedral right beside a Greek church. East and West, side by side. Just like Venice.”
In front of the two churches stretched a grass-infested piazzetta. Once the center of city life, now no more than a village green. Dusty paths stretched outward, a couple leading to a second canal, more winding toward distant farmhouses. Two other stone buildings fronted the piazzetta, both small, maybe forty by twenty feet, two-storied, with gabled roofs. Together they comprised the Museo di Torcello. The guidebook noted they were once palazzos, occupied centuries ago by wealthy merchants, but were now owned by the state.
Cassiopeia pointed at the building on the left. “The medallion is in there, on the second floor. Not much of a museum. Mosaic fragments, capitals, a few paintings, some books, and coins. Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artifacts.”
He faced her. She continued to stare out over the island. To the south loomed the outline of Venice central, its campaniles reaching for a darkening sky, the hint of a storm rising. “What are we doing here?”
She did not immediately answer. He reached over and touched her arm. She shuddered at the contact, but did not resist. Her eyes watered and he wondered if Torcello’s sad atmosphere had reminded her of memories better left forgotten.
“This place is all gone,” she muttered.
They were alone at the top of the tower, the lazy silence disturbed only by footfalls, voices, and laughter from others, below, making the climb.
“So is Ely,” he said.
“I miss him.” She bit her lip.
He wondered if her burst of sincerity implied a growing trust. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
He did not like the sound of her words. “What do you have in mind?”
She did not answer and he did not press. Instead, he stared with her across the church rooftops. A few stalls selling lace, glassware, and souvenirs flanked a short lane leading from the village to the grassy piazzetta. A group of visitors were making their way toward the churches. Among them, Malone spotted a familiar face.
Viktor.
“I see him, too,” Cassiopeia said.
People arrived at the top, in the bell chamber.
“The man beside him is the one who slashed the car tires,” she said.
They watched as the two men headed straight for the museum.
“We need to get down from here,” he said. “They might decide to check the high ground, too. Remember they think we’re dead.”
“Like this whole place,” she muttered.
THIRTY-FIVE
VENICE
3:20 P.M.
STEPHANIE HOPPED FROM THE WATER TAXI AND MADE HER WAY through the tight warren of close-quartered streets. She’d asked directions at her hotel and was following them the best she could, but Venice was a vast labyrinth. She was deep into the Dorsoduro district, a quiet, picturesque neighborhood long associated with wealth, following busy, alleylike thoroughfares lined with bustling commerce.
Ahead, she spotted the villa. Rigidly symmetrical, casting an air of lost distinction, its beauty sprang from a pleasing contrast of redbrick walls veined with emerald vines, highlighted with marble trim.
She stepped through a wrought-iron gate and announced her presence with a knock on the front door. An older woman with an airy face, dressed in a servant’s uniform, answered.
“I’m here to see Mr. Vincenti,” Stephanie said. “Tell him I bring greetings from President Danny Daniels.”
The woman appraised her with a curious look and she wondered if the name of the president of the United States struck a chord. So, to be sure, she handed the attendant a folded slip of paper. “Give this to him.”
The woman hesitated, then closed the door.
Stephanie waited.
Two minutes later the door reopened.
Wider this time.
And she was invited in.
“Fascinating introduction,” Vincenti said to her.
They sat in a rectangular room beneath a gilded ceiling, the room’s elegance highlighted by the dull gleam of lacquer that had surely coated the furniture for centuries. She sniffed the dank fragrance and thought she detected the odor of cats mixed with a scent of lemon polish.
Her host held up the note. “‘The President of the United States sent me.’ Quite a statement.” He seemed pleased at his perceived importance.
“You’re an interesting man, Mr. Vincenti. Born in upstate New York. A U.S. citizen. August Rothman.” She shook her head. “Enrico Vincenti? You changed the name. I’m curious, why?”
He shrugged. “It’s all about image.”
“It does sound more,” she hesitated, “continental.”
“Actually, a lot of thought was given to that name. Enrico came from Enrico Dandolo, thirty-ninth doge of Venice, in the late twelfth century. He led the Fourth Crusade that conquered Constantinople and ended the Byzantine Empire. Quite a man. Legendary, you might say.
“Vincenti I took from another twelfth-century Venetian. A Benedictine monk and nobleman. When his entire family was wiped out in the Aegean Sea, he applied for and got permission to dispense with his monastic vows. He married and founded five new lines of his family from his children. Quite resourceful. I admired his flexibility.”
“So you became Enrico Vincenti. Venetian aristocracy.”
He nodded. “Sounds great, no?”
“Want me to continue on what I know?”
He motioned his assent.