THE OTHER TWO?

Malone heard the words as he assumed a position behind another stone railing, this one high above the presbytery, less than a hundred fifty feet above Thorvaldsen and Zovastina. Cassiopeia was fifty yards across the nave, in the south transept, with an equally high perch.

He couldn’t see her, but he hoped she’d heard.

ZOVASTINA WAITED UNTIL VIKTOR LEFT, THEN GLARED AT THORVALDSEN. “Is there a problem with wanting to defend my nation?”

“Beware the toils of war. Soon they’ll raze your sturdy citadel to the roots.”

“What Sarpedon said to Hector in the Iliad. You have studied me. Let me offer a quotation. Nor do I think you’ll find us short on courage, long as our strength will last.”

“You’re not planning on defending anything. You’re preparing an attack. Those zoonoses are offensive. Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. Only one man ever conquered them. Alexander the Great. And he could only hold the land for just a handful of years. Ever since, conquerors have tried and failed. Even the Americans attempted with Iraq. But you, Supreme Minister, you intend to best them all.”

She possessed a leak-a massive one. She needed to return home and resolve that problem.

“You want to do what Alexander did, only in reverse. Not the West conquering the East. This time the East will dominate. You intend to acquire all of your neighbors. And you actually believe the West will allow you the luxury, thinking you’ll be their friend. But you don’t plan to stop there, do you? The Middle East and Arabia, you want those, too. You have oil. The old Kazakhstan is rich with it. But you sell most of that to Russia and Europe cheap. So you want a new source, one that would give you even greater world power. Your zoonoses might just make all that possible. You could devastate a nation in a matter of days. Bring it to its knees. None of your potential victim-states are particularly adept at war in the first place, and when your germs finish, they’ll be defenseless.”

She still held the gun. “The West should welcome that change.”

“We prefer the devils we know. And contrary to all those Arab states’ varied beliefs, the West isn’t their enemy.”

He pointed straight at her.

“You are.”

MALONE LISTENED CAREFULLY. THORVALDSEN WAS NO FOOL, SO HE was challenging Zovastina for a reason. The Dane even being here was highly unusual. The last trip the man took was to Austria last fall. Yet here he was, inside an Italian basilica in the middle of the night, poking sticks into the spokes of an armed despot.

He’d watched as Viktor left the presbytery and turned into the south transept, below Cassiopeia’s position. Malone’s immediate concern was an open stairway twenty feet away that led down to the nave. If there was a portal on this side, in the north transept, surely another opened in the south since medieval builders, if nothing else, loved symmetry.

He was surrounded by more undressed masonry walls along with art, tapestries, lace, and paintings, most displayed in glass cases or on tables.

A shadow appeared in the lighted stairway and danced across the marble walls, growing in size.

One of Zovastina’s guards.

Climbing to the second floor.

Straight for him.

FIFTY-THREE

STEPHANIE FOLLOWED MONSIGNOR MICHENER DOWN THE HALLS of the diocese offices, into a nondescript cubicle, where Edwin Davis sat beneath a framed portrait of the pope.

“Still want to kick my ass?” Davis asked.

She was too tired to fight. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to stop a war.”

She didn’t want to hear it. “You realize there could be trouble inside that church.”

“Which is why you’re not in there.”

Realization dawned. “Malone and Cassiopeia can be denied.”

“Something like that. We have no idea what Zovastina may do, but I didn’t want the head of the Magellan Billet involved.”

She turned to leave.

“I’d stay here if I were you,” Davis said.

“Screw off, Edwin.”

Michener blocked her way in the doorway.

“Are you part of this insanity?” she asked.

“As I said outside, we came across something and passed it on to a place we thought might be interested. Irina Zovastina is a threat to the world.”

“She’s planning a war,” Davis said. “Millions will die, and she’s just about ready to start.”

She turned back. “So she took the time to risk a trip to Venice and look at a two-thousand-year-old body? What is she doing here?”

“Probably getting angry,” Michener said.

She saw a twinkle in his eye. “You set her up?”

The priest shook his head. “She did that all by herself.”

“Somebody’s going to get shot in there. Cassiopeia is way beyond the end of her rope. You don’t think gunfire is going to attract the attention of all those police out in the square?”

“The basilica’s walls are several feet thick,” Michener said. “Totally soundproof. No one will disturb them.”

“Stephanie,” Davis said, “we’re not sure why Zovastina took the chance coming here. But it’s obviously important. We thought since she was so intent on coming, we’d accommodate her.”

“I get the point. Out of her sandbox and into ours. But you have no right to place Malone and Cassiopeia in jeopardy.”

“Come now. I didn’t do that. Cassiopeia was already involved, with Henrik Thorvaldsen-who, by the way, involved you. And Malone? He’s a big boy and can do what he wants. He’s here because he wants to be here.”

“You’re fishing for information. Hoping to learn something.”

“And using the only bait we have. She’s the one who wanted a look inside that tomb.”

Stephanie was puzzled. “You seem to know her overall plan. What are you waiting for? Move on her. Bomb her installations. Shut her down. Bring political pressures on her.”

“It’s not that simple. Our information is sketchy. And we have no concrete proof. Certainly not anything she can’t simply deny. You can’t bomb biologicals. And, unfortunately, we don’t know it all. That’s what we need Malone and the others to zero in on for us.”

“Edwin, you don’t know Cotton. He doesn’t like to be played.”

“We know Naomi Johns is dead.”

He’d held that one for the right moment, and the words pounded her gut.

“She was stuffed into a coffin with another man, a small-time hood from Florence. Her neck was broken and he had a bullet to the head.”

“Vincenti?” she asked.

Davis nodded. “Who’s also on the move. He left earlier for the Central Asian Federation. An unscheduled visit.”

She could see he knew even more.

“He just kidnapped a woman that Irina Zovastina has been caring for since last year, a woman that she was once romantically involved with.”

“Zovastina’s a lesbian?”

“Wouldn’t that be a shocker to her People’s Assembly? She and this woman were involved for a long time. But her former lover is dying of AIDS, and Vincenti apparently has a use for her.”

“And there’s a reason you’re allowing Vincenti to do whatever it is he’s doing?”

“He’s up to something, too. And it’s more than just supplying Zovastina with germs and antiagents. It’s more than providing the Venetian League with a safe haven for all their business activities. We want to know what that is.”

She needed to leave.

Another priest appeared in the office doorway and said, “We just heard a shot, from inside the basilica.”