MALONE BROUGHT THE THROTTLE TO NEUTRAL. “YOU HEAR that?”
Stephanie, too, was alert. “Sounded like a gunshot. Nearby.”
He stuck his head beyond the windscreen and noted that the fire on Torcello, about a mile away, burned with new vigor. The mist had lifted, weather here apparently came in quick waves, the visibility now relatively reasonable. Boat lights crisscrossed paths in all directions.
His ears searched for sound.
Nothing.
He powered up the engines.
CASSIOPEIA AIMED AT THE BULKHEAD, SENDING THE BULLET within inches of Viktor’s leg. “Ely never hurt a soul. Why did she have to kill him?” She kept the gun trained on him. “Tell me. Why?” The question came out one word at a time, through clenched teeth, more pleading than angry.
“Zovastina is a woman on a mission. Your Ely interfered.”
“He was a historian. How could he have been a threat?” She hated herself for referring to him in the past tense.
Water lapped against the low-riding hull and the wind continued to batter the boat.
“You’d be surprised how easily she kills people.”
His avoidance of her questions only compounded her rage. “Man the damn wheel.” She watched him from the opposite side of the helm. “Move us ahead, nice and slow.”
“Where to?”
“San Marco.”
He turned and engaged the throttle, then suddenly spun the boat hard left, twisting the deck beneath her feet. In the moment of surprise where maintaining her balance overrode her desire to shoot, he lunged toward her.
VIKTOR KNEW HE HAD TO KILL THIS WOMAN. SHE REPRESENTED failure on a multitude of levels-enough that, if she was discovered, Zovastina would lose all confidence in him.
Not to mention what happened to Rafael.
His left hand gripped the top of the rear cabin door and he used the wooden panel to swing his body off the twisting deck, crashing his boots into the woman’s arms.
She deflected his blow and fell forward.
The cockpit was a couple of meters square. Two openings on either side provided access off the boat. Engines whined as the boat, without a pilot, fought the swells. Spray crashed over the windscreen. The woman still held the gun, but was having trouble regaining her balance.
He jabbed and caught her on the jaw with the heel of his open palm. Her neck whipped back, banging her head into something. He used the moment of her confusion to spin the wheel again and decrease power. He was concerned about the shifting shoals and clinging grasses. Torcello loomed to his left, the burning museum illuminating the night. The boat twirled in the rough water and the woman grabbed for her skull.
He decided to let nature handle things.
And kicked her into the sea.
FORTY-SEVEN
ZOVASTINA STEPPED THROUGH THE ICONOSTASIS INTO THE PRESBYTERY and stared at the basilica’s magnificent baldachin. Four alabaster columns, each adorned with elaborate reliefs, supported a massive block of verde green marble carved into intersecting vaults. Behind, framed by the baldachin, glittered the famous Pala d’Oro, the screen rich with gold, precious stones, and enamel.
Beneath the altar, she studied the two distinct parts of the stone sarcophagus. The misshapen top was more a slab-the bottom carved smooth into a rectangle upon which was etched CORPVS DIVI MARCI EVANGELISTAE. Her Latin was enough for a rough translation. Body of the divine St. Mark. Two heavy iron rings protruded from the top, which apparently was how the massive stones had been initially lowered into place. Now, thick iron bars pierced the rings, bolted at each end to four hydraulic jacks.
“This is a real challenge,” Michener said. “Not much space beneath the altar. Of course, with heavy equipment we could easily get inside, but we don’t have the time or privacy for that.”
She noticed the men preparing the jacks. “Priests?”
He nodded. “Assigned here. We thought it best to keep this among us.”
“Do you know what’s inside?” she asked.
“What you’re really asking is whether the remains are mummified.” Michener shrugged. “It’s been over one hundred and seventy years since this tomb was opened. No one really knows what’s in there.”
She resented his smugness. Ptolemy had taken advantage of Eumenes’ switch, and used what the world believed to be Alexander’s corpse to its fullest political potential. She had no way of knowing if what she was about to see would provide any answers, but it was imperative she find out.
Michener motioned to one of the priests and the hydraulic jacks were cranked. The iron rings atop the tomb stretched vertically, then, ever so slowly, a millimeter at a time, the jacks lifted the weighty lid.
“Powerful mechanisms,” Michener said. “Small, but they can lift a house from underneath.”
The lid was now two centimeters skyward, but the interior of the sarcophagus remained in shadow. She stared high above the baldachin, into the apse’s brightly lit semidome, at a golden mosaic of Christ.
The four men stopped working the jacks.
The sarcophagus lid hung suspended about four centimeters above the bottom, the iron bars now flush with the underside of the altar top.
No more room to climb.
Michener gestured for them to retreat toward the iconostasis, away from the altar, where he whispered, “The Holy Father is trying to accommodate your request with the hope that you’ll reciprocate his. But let’s be real. You’re not going to honor your promise.”
“I’m not accustomed to being insulted.”
“And the Holy Father is not accustomed to being lied to.”
All pretense seemed to have left this diplomat. “You’ll be given access to the Federation, as I assured.”
“We want more.”
Now she realized. He’d waited until the lid was off. She hated herself, but because of Karyn, and Alexander the Great, and what may be out there, somewhere, to find, she had no choice.
“What do you want?”
He reached beneath his jacket and removed a folded sheaf of papers. “We’ve prepared a concordat between the Federation and the Church. Written assurances that we’ll be given access. Per your request of yesterday, we’ve reserved the right to the Federation on approval of any church construction.”
She unfolded the papers and saw the text had even been prepared in Kazakh.
“We thought it easier to have it in your language.”
“You thought it would be easier to disseminate in my language. My signature is your insurance. No way I could deny you then.”
She glanced through the concordat. The language detailed a cooperative effort between the Roman Church and the Central Asia Federation to “jointly promote and encourage the free exercise of religion through unrestricted allowance of missionary work.” The paragraphs went on to assure that violence against the Church would not be tolerated and offenders would be punished. More provisions guaranteed that visas would be liberally granted to Church personnel and no reprisals would be tolerated against any converts.
She stared back at the altar. The lower half of the sarcophagus remained in shadow. Even from ten meters away she could see nothing inside.
“You’d be a good one to have on my team,” she said.
“I like serving the Church.”
She glanced at her watch-12:50 A.M. Viktor should already be here. He was never late. So dependable. She stared out into the nave, back toward the upper portions of the west atrium where only the golden ceilings were illuminated. Lots of dark places to hide. She wondered, when one A.M. came and she was granted her thirty minutes, if she’d really be alone.
“If signing the concordat is a problem,” Michener said, “we could just forget the whole thing.”