The man’s eyes lit up. “Here?”
He nodded. “Close by.”
SIXTY-FIVE
SAMARKAND
9:15 A.M.
CASSIOPEIA WAS TAKEN FROM THE PLANE BY TWO OF ZOVASTINA’S guardsmen. She’d been told that they would escort her to the palace, where she’d be held.
“You realize,” she said to Zovastina, from beside the open car door, “that you’ve bargained for trouble.”
Zovastina surely would not want to have this conversation here, on an open tarmac, with an airport crew and her guardsmen nearby. On the plane, alone, would have been the time. But Cassiopeia had purposefully stayed silent the last two hours of the flight.
“Trouble is a way of life here,” Zovastina said.
As she was guided into the rear seat, her hands cuffed behind her back, Cassiopeia decided to insert the knife. “You were wrong about the bones.”
Zovastina seemed to consider the challenge. Venice had, for all intents and purposes, been a failure, so it was no surprise when Zovastina approached and asked, “How so?”
The whine of jet engines and a stiff spring breeze stirred the fume-filled air. Cassiopeia sat calmly in the rear seat and stared out through the front windshield. “There was something to find.” She faced the Supreme Minister. “And you missed it.”
“Taunting me will not help.”
She ignored the threat. “If you want to solve the riddle, you’re going to have to bargain.”
This demon was easy to read. Certainly, Zovastina had suspected she knew things. Why else bring her? And Cassiopeia had been careful so far, knowing that she could not reveal too much. After all, her life literally depended on how much information she could effectively withhold.
One of the guardsmen stepped forward and whispered in Zovastina’s ear. The Minister listened, and she saw a momentary shock sweep across her face. Then Zovastina nodded and the guardsman withdrew.
“Trouble?” Cassiopeia asked.
“The perils of being Supreme Minister. You and I will talk later.”
And she marched off.
THE FRONT DOOR OF THE HOUSE STOOD OPEN. NOTHING DAMAGED. No evidence of forced entry. Inside, two of her Sacred Band waited. Zovastina glared at one and asked, “What happened?”
“Both of our men were shot through the head. Sometime last night. The nurse and Karyn Walde are gone. Their clothes are still here. The nurse’s alarm clock was set and on for six A.M. Nothing shows they intended to voluntarily leave.”
She walked back to the master bedroom. The respirator stood silent, the intravenous drip connected to no one. Had Karyn escaped? And where would she go? She stepped back to the foyer and asked her two men, “Any witnesses?”
“We asked at the other residences, but no one saw or heard anything.”
It had all happened while she was gone. That could not be a coincidence. She decided to play a hunch. She stepped to one of the house phones and dialed her personal secretary. She told her what she wanted and waited three minutes until the woman returned on the line and said, “Vincenti entered the Federation last night at 1:40 A.M. Private plane using his open visa.”
She still believed Vincenti had been behind the assassination attempt. He must have known she’d left the Federation. Her government clearly possessed a multitude of leaks-Henrik Thorvaldsen and Cassiopeia Vitt were proof of that-but what to do about those things?
“Minister,” her secretary said through the phone, “I was about to try and locate you. You have a visitor.”
“Vincenti?” she asked, a bit too quickly.
“Another American.”
“The ambassador?” Samarkand was dotted with foreign embassies, and many of her days were filled with visits from their various representatives.
“Edwin Davis, the deputy national security adviser to the American president. He entered the country a few hours ago on a diplomatic passport.”
“Unannounced?”
“He simply appeared at the palace, asking to see you. He will not discuss with anyone why he’s here.”
That was not a coincidence, either.
“I’ll be there shortly.”
SIXTY-SIX
SAMARKAND
10:30 A.M
MALONE DRANK A COCA-COLA LIGHT AND WATCHED AS THE LEAR Jet 36A approached the terminal. Samarkand’s airport lay north of the city, a single runway facility that accommodated not only commercial traffic, but also private and military. He’d beaten both Viktor and Zovastina back from Italy thanks to an F-16-E Strike Eagle that President Daniels had ordered placed at his disposal. Aviano Air Base, fifty miles north of Venice, had been a quick chopper ride and the flight east, thanks to supersonic speeds at over thirteen hundred miles an hour, had taken just over two hours. Zovastina and the Lear Jet he was now watching taxi closer had needed almost five hours.
Two F-16s had arrived in Samarkand without incident, as the United States possessed unrestricted landing rights at all Federation airports and bases. Ostensibly, the U.S. was an ally, but that distinction, he knew, was fleeting at best in this part of the world. The other fighter had carried Edwin Davis, who was, by now, at the palace. President Daniels had not liked involving Davis, he had preferred to keep him at a distance, but wisely recognized that Malone was not going to take no for an answer. Besides, as the president had said with a chuckle, the whole plan had at least a ten percent chance of working, so what the hell.
He gulped the last of the soft drink, weak by American standards but tasty enough. He’d slept an hour on the flight, the first time he’d been inside a strike fighter in twenty years. He’d been trained to fly them early in his navy career, before he became a lawyer and switched to the Judge Advocate General’s corps. Naval friends of his father had urged him to make the choice.
His father.
A full commander. Until one August day when the submarine he captained sank. Malone had been ten, but the memory always brought a pang of sadness. By the time he’d enlisted in the navy, his father’s contemporaries had risen to high rank and they had plans for Forrest Malone’s son. So out of respect, he’d done as they’d asked and ended up as an agent with the Magellan Billet.
He never regretted his choices, and his Justice Department career had been memorable. Even in retirement the world had not ignored him. Templars. The Library of Alexandria. Now Alexander the Great’s grave. He shook his head. Choices. Everybody made them.
Like the man now deplaning from the Lear Jet. Viktor. Government informant. Random asset.
Problem.
He tossed the bottle into the trash and waited for Viktor to step into the concourse. An AWACS E3 Sentry, always in orbit over the Middle East, had tracked the Lear Jet from Venice, Malone knowing precisely when it would arrive.
Viktor appeared as in the basilica, his face chapped, his clothes dirty. He walked with the stiffness of a man who’d just endured a long night.
Malone retreated behind a short wall and waited until Viktor was inside, turning toward the terminal, then he stepped out and followed. “Took you long enough.”
Viktor stopped and turned. Not a hint of surprise clouded the other man’s face. “I thought I was to help Vitt.”
“I’m here to help you.”
“You and your friends set me up in Copenhagen. I don’t like being played.”
“Who does?”
“Go back where you came from, Malone. Let me handle this.”
Malone withdrew a pistol. One of the advantages of arriving by military jet had been no Customs checks for U.S. military personnel or their passengers. “I’ve been told to help you. That’s what I’m going to do, whether you like it or not.”