The Medici Dagger

“Don’t tell me what I—”

“The museum curator’s kid gets a degree in Art History and what does he do? Becomes a stuntman—a high flyer with no net. No, you don’t want to be a citizen,” Greer said. “You want risk. You want action. Maybe now you even want payback. This isyourquest, kid, don’t you see it? You can find the Medici Dagger. Avenge your parents’ deaths. This is your fate.”

I closed my eyes and began to tremble. Bubbling rage awoke my demons and they began to dance on my soul, a furious, thundering dance of wrath that shook the dank walls of the cave where I’d lain in a death sleep since the fiery night in 1980. The howling heat of a thousand suns suddenly switching on, blazing through a stunned universe, lighting the word:Fate!

I pictured the pointy tip of Leonardo’s dagger hurtling through history toward me. I felt crazy. Giddiness overtook me and for asecond I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of the moment, the profundity of it. Coming from Henry Greer! The dead courier who wasn’t really dead.

He was right. I wanted revenge.

I opened my eyes.

“What happened to the original notes?”

Greer turned his head to the side. At that moment I caught sight ofa corner of yellowed paper barely sticking out from under the edge of the pillow.

“Take it,” Greer said, lifting his head with what little strength he possessed.

I gently removed the paper from under the pillow and drew a deep breath.

I was holding Leonardo da Vinci’s notes.

Turning the fragile document over and back, I held it up to the light. To one side was a drawing of a sleek dagger and a paragraph next to it, written in Leonardo’s precise backward handwriting. And on the reverse, a circular design that resembled a delicately drawn bull’s-eye composed of ten individual rings in decreasing size, each ring made up of seemingly haphazard tiny marks. The Circles of Truth? Next to that, another drawing, this one of three triangular-shaped tubes nested together like a closed sailor’s telescope interconnected with pulleys and supported by a leg on each side.

I pressed my fingertips to the dried ink—ink that had flowed from the quill of Leonardo’s pen. The pen that had been grasped by the hand that gave the worldThe Virgin of the Rocks,Mona Lisa—that had given me Ginevra de’ Benci.

I pried my eyes from the page, looked at Greer. “Why didn’t you try to solve it? Why didn’t you go after it?”

Greer surveyed the blanket that covered his ravaged body.

“You could have toldsomebodysomewhere down the line,” I said.

“I just did,” Greer whispered, closing his eyes.

“Greer,” I said, moving my face close to his. “Greer!”

The dying man opened his eyes; I could see a map of crisscrossing red capillaries.

“If it’s true,” I said slowly, “if this is all true . . . then you and Tecci are the ones who killed us.”

Greer coughed a visceral, painful cough. “Resurrect yourself,” he rasped.

I drove back to the airport with the radio off, one hand on the wheel, the other clutching Leonardo’s notes. On the flight home, I studied the page, thoughts tearing at me like a thousand vultures. Greed. Fire. Endless questions.My parents murdered? Werner Krell? A man named Nolo Tecci had been in my house? Burned down my life? For this? This is what we died for?I remembered my dad’s jubilation the day he’d sentHenry Greer for the notes, certain that they’d lead to the Medici Dagger. Our conversations about the glorious things that could be done with the Dagger’s alloy—indestructible bridges, automobiles lighter than air. And then his dreams reduced to smoldering ash in the wink of an eye—Nolo Tecci’s eye.

It was ten o’clock when I arrived home. A suitcase-sized package with no return address sat by the front door. I brought it inside, flipped on the lights, and opened it. The night sky was clear, and moonlight mixed with the amber of my mica table lamps. In the box was a beat-up leather satchel, the kind that yawns open at the top. I felt its weight as I hefted it out and laid it on the living-room table.

Inside was a bulky laundry bag cinched together at the top. Loosening the rope, I discovered bound wads of cash—hundred-dollar bills in ten-thousand-dollar stacks. With clammy hands I counted two hundred bundles—two million dollars. I reach for the page of Leonardo’s notes. His words, his thoughts, brushed my fingertips.

I called Denver information for The Willows. A woman answered after the second ring. “Hello, The Willows.”

“Peggy?” I said.

“Oh . . . yes, this is Peggy.”

I identified myself and asked for Harvey Grant. After a pause she said, “I’m sorry. Mr. Grant is . . . no longer with us.”

“Ohhh,” I said with remorse—not for his death, but at the loss of a resource. My utter disregard for the end of Henry Greer’s life registered briefly, but my heart was busy pumping icy vengeance through my veins.

There was an awkward silence as the interstate phone line hummed; then Peggy said, “Reb, take care of yourself. And good luck.”

I thanked her, hung up, and wandered back into the living room. A cool breeze swept in through the open window and mixed sweet night air with the foul smell of Werner Krell’s money.