FORTY-NINE
SAMARKAND
4:50 A.M.
VINCENTI’S SPINE TINGLED. TRUE, HE’D ORDERED PEOPLE KILLED, one just yesterday, but this was different. He was about to embark on a bold path. One that would not only make him the wealthiest person on the planet, but also secure him a place in history.
Dawn lay a little over an hour away. He sat in the rear of the car while O’Conner and two other men approached a house shielded behind a thicket of blooming chestnut trees and a tall iron fence, everything owned by Irina Zovastina.
O’Conner drew near to the car and Vincenti lowered the window.
“The two guards are dead. We took them out with no trouble.”
“Any other security?”
“That’s it. Zovastina had this place on a loose leash.”
Because she thought no one cared. “Are we ready?”
“Only the woman who watches over her is inside.”
“Then let’s see how agreeable they are.”
Vincenti entered through the front door. The two other men they’d hired for tonight held Karyn Walde’s nurse, an older woman with a stern face, wearing a bathrobe and slippers. A frightened look filled her Asian features.
“I understand,” he said to her, “that you care for Ms. Walde.”
The woman nodded.
“And that you resent how the Supreme Minister treats her.”
“She’s terrible to her.”
He was pleased their intelligence had been accurate. “I understand that Karyn is suffering. Her illness is progressing.”
“And the minister won’t let her rest.”
He signaled and the two men released their hold. He stepped close and said, “I’m here to relieve her suffering. But I need your help.”
Her gaze carried suspicion. “Where are the guards?”
“Dead. Wait here while I go see her.” He motioned. “Down the hall?”
She nodded again.
He switched on one of the bedside lamps and gazed at the pathetic sight lying prone beneath a pale pink comforter.
Karyn Walde breathed with the help of bottled oxygen and a respirator. An intravenous bag fed one arm. He removed a hypodermic, inserted the needle into one of its IV ports, and let it dangle.
The woman’s eyes opened.
“You need to wake up,” he said.
She blinked a few times, trying to register what was happening. She then pushed herself up from the pillow. “Who are you?”
“I know they’ve been in short supply lately, but I’m a friend.”
“Do I know you?”
He shook his head. “No reason why you would. But I know you. Tell me, what was it like to love Irina Zovastina?”
Surely an odd question from a stranger in the middle of the night, but she only shrugged. “Why would you care?”
“I’ve dealt with her many years. Never once have I ever felt any affection either from or toward her. How did you?”
“It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times.”
He glanced around at the room’s decor. Elegant and expensive, like the rest of the house. “You live well.”
“Small comfort.”
“Yet when you became ill, knew you were HIV positive, you returned to her. Came back after several years of estrangement.”
“You know a lot about me.”
“To come back you must have felt something for her.”
She laid herself back on the pillow. “In some ways, she’s foolish.”
He listened closely.
“She fashions herself Achilles to my Patroclus. Or worse, she’s Alexander and thinks of me as Hephaestion. I’ve listened to those stories many times. You know the Iliad?”
He shook his head.
“Achilles felt responsible for Patroclus’ death. He allowed his lover to lead men into battle, pretending to be him. Alexander the Great felt great guilt over Hephaestion dying.”
“You know your literature and history.”
“I don’t know a thing. I’ve just listened to her ramble.”
“How is she foolish?”
“She wants to save me, yet can’t bring herself to say it. She comes, stares at me, chastises me, even attacks me, but always she’s trying to save me. When it came to me I knew she was weak, so I returned to where I knew I’d be looked after.”
“Yet you obviously hate her.”
“I assure you, whoever you are, that someone in my shoes has little choice.”
“You speak freely to a stranger.”
“I have nothing to hide or fear. My life’s about over.”
“You’ve given up?”
“Like I have a choice.”
He decided to see what else he could learn. “Zovastina is in Venice. Right now. Searching for something. Are you aware of that?”
“It doesn’t surprise me. She’s the great hero, on the great hero’s quest. I’m the weak lover. We’re not to ask or challenge the hero, just accept what’s offered.”
“You have listened to a lot of nonsense.”
She shrugged. “She imagines herself my savior, so I allow it. Why not? Besides, tormenting her is my only pleasure. Life’s choices and all that bullshit.”
“Sometimes life is fickle.”
He could see that she was intrigued.
“Where are the guards?”
“Dead.”
“And my nurse?”
“She’s fine. I believe she actually cares for you.”
A slight nod. “She does.”
In her prime this woman would have been formidable-able to seduce both men and women-easy to see how Zovastina would have been attracted to her. But it was also easy to see how the two women would have clashed. Both alpha-females. Both accustomed to having their way.
“I’ve been watching you for some time,” he told her.
“There’s not much to see.”
“Tell me, if you could have anything in this world, what would it be?”
The gravely ill soul lying before him seemed to seriously consider his inquiry. He saw the words as they formed in her mind. He’d seen the same resolution before, in others long ago, facing similar dire consequences, clinging to little or no hope since neither science nor religion could save them.
Only a miracle.
So when she drew a breath and mouthed her answer, he was not disappointed.
“To live.”
FIFTY
VENICE
VIKTOR HUSTLED PAST THE BASILICA’S BRIGHTLY LIT WESTERN FACADE. High above, St. Mark himself stood guard in the black night above a golden lion with outstretched wings. The heart of the piazza spanned to his left, cordoned off, a multitude of police swarming the broad pavement. A crowd had gathered and he’d overheard from snippets of conversation that a shooting had occurred. He skirted the spectacle and headed for the church’s north entrance, the one Zovastina had told him to use.
He was unnerved by the appearance of the woman with the bow. She should have been dead in Denmark. And if she wasn’t dead, the other two problems were surely also still breathing. Things were gyrating out of control. He should have stayed and made sure she drowned in the lagoon, but Zovastina was waiting and he could not be late.
He kept seeing Rafael die.
Zovastina would not care beyond wanting to know if the death raised any suspicion. But how could it? There’d be no body to find. Just bone fragments and ashes.
Like when Ely Lund’s house burned.
“You’re going to kill me?” Ely asked. “What have I done?” The intruder brandished a gun. “How can I be a threat to anyone?”
Viktor stood out of sight, in an adjacent room, and listened.
“Why don’t you answer me?” Ely asked, his voice rising.
“I’m not here to talk,” the man said.
“Just here to shoot me?”
“I do as I’m ordered.”