The Venetian Betrayal

“And killing prisoners will bring this peace?”

This woman cared not about destiny. Zovastina’s entire life had seemed destined. So far, she’d forged a new political order-just as Alexander had done. Another lesson from Sergej spoke loudly. Remember, Irina, what Arrian said of Alexander. He was always the rival of his own self. Only in the past few years had she come to understand that malady. She stared at the woman who’d ruined her life over a few thousand rubles.

“Ever heard of Menander?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“He was a Greek playwright from the fourth century BCE. He wrote comedies.”

“I prefer tragedies.”

She was tiring of this defeatism. Not everyone could be changed. Unlike Colonel Enver, who’d earlier seen the possibilities she’d offered and willingly become a convert. Men like him would be useful in the years ahead, but this pitiful soul represented nothing but failure.

“Menander wrote something I’ve always found to be true. If you want to live your whole life free from pain, you must either be a god or a corpse.”

She reached across and unsnapped the woman’s harness. The guardsman, sitting beside the prisoner, wrenched open the cabin door. The woman seemed momentarily stunned by the bitter air and the engine roar that rushed inside.

“I’m a god,” Zovastina said. “You’re a corpse.”

The guard ripped off the woman’s headset, who apparently realized what was about to happen and started to resist.

But he shoved her out the door.

Zovastina watched as the body tumbled through the crystalline air, vanishing into the peaks below.

The guard slammed the cabin door shut and the helicopter kept flying west back to Samarkand.

For the first time since this morning, she felt satisfied.

Everything was now in place.

PART TWO

TWENTY-ONE

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

7:30 P.M.

STEPHANIE NELLE SCRAMBLED OUT OF THE CAB AND QUICKLY jerked up the hood of her overcoat. An April rain poured down and water puddled between the rough cobbles, furiously streaming toward the city canals. The source, a nasty storm that had blown in earlier off the North Sea, now lay hidden behind indigo clouds, but a steady drizzle remained visible within the penumbra of streetlamps.

She pushed through the rain, stuffing bare hands into coat pockets. She crossed an arched pedestrian bridge, entered the Rembrandtplein, and noticed that the torrid evening had not dampened the crowds at the peep shows, pickup clubs, gay bars, and striptease outlets.

Farther into the bowels of the red-light district, she passed brothels, their plate-glass windows littered with girls promising fulfillment with leather and lace. In one, an Asian woman, dressed in tight bondage gear, sat on a padded seat and flipped through the pages of a magazine.

Stephanie had been told that night was not the most threatening time for a visit to the renowned district. The morning desperation of passing junkies and the early-afternoon edginess of pimps waiting for the evening’s business were usually more intense. But she’d been warned that the northern end, near the Nieuwmarkt, in an area just beyond the crowds, constantly exuded a quiet sense of menace. So she was on guard as she breached the invisible line and entered. Her eyes shot back and forth, like a prowling cat’s, her course set straight for the cafe at the far end of the street.

The Jan Heuval occupied the ground floor of a three-story warehouse. A brown cafe, one of hundreds that dotted the Rembrandtplein. She shoved open the front door and immediately noticed the aroma of burning cannabis along with the absence of any “No Drugs Please” sign.

The cafe was jammed, its warm air saturated with a hallucinogenic fog scented like singed rope. The aroma of fried fish and roasted chestnuts mixed with the intoxicating waft and her eyes burned. She pushed back the hood and shook rain onto the foyer’s already damp tiles.

Then she spotted Klaus Dyhr. Mid-thirties, blond-haired, pale, weathered face-exactly as he’d been described.

Not for the first time, she reminded herself why she was here. Returning a favor. Cassiopeia Vitt had asked her to contact Dyhr. And since she owed her friend at least one favor, she could hardly refuse the request. Before making contact she’d run a check and learned that Dyhr was Dutch born, German educated, and practiced chemistry for a local plastics manufacturer. His obsession was coin collecting-he supposedly possessed an impressive array-and one in particular had drawn the interest of her Muslim friend.

The Dutchman stood alone near a chest-high table, nursing a brown beer and munching fried fish. A rolled cigarette burned in an ashtray and the thick green fog curling upward was not from tobacco.

“I’m Stephanie Nelle,” she said in English. “The woman who called.”

“You said you were interested in buying.”

She caught the curt tone that said, “Tell me what you want, pay me, and I’ll be on my way.” She also noticed his glassy eyes, which almost couldn’t be helped. Even she was starting to feel a buzz. “Like I said on the phone, I want the elephant medallion.”

He gulped a swallow of beer. “Why? It’s of no consequence. I have many other coins worth much more. Good prices.”

“I’m sure you do. But I want the medallion. You said it was for sale.”

“I said it depends on what you want to pay.”

“Can I see it?”

Klaus reached into his pocket. She accepted the offering and studied the oblong medallion through a plastic sleeve. A warrior on one side, a mounted war elephant challenging a horseman on the other. About the size of a fifty-cent piece, the images nearly eroded away.

“You know nothing of what that is, do you?” Klaus asked.

She decided to be honest. “I’m doing this for someone else.”

“I want six thousand euros.”

Cassiopeia had told her to pay whatever. Price was irrelevant. But staring at the sheaved piece, she wondered why something so nondescript would be so important.

“There are only eight known,” he said. “Six thousand euros is a bargain.”

“Only eight? Why sell it?”

He fingered the burning butt, sucked a deep drag, held it, then slowly whistled out thick smoke. “I need the money.” His oily eyes returned their gaze downward, staring toward his beer.

“Things that bad?” she asked.

“You sound like you care.”

Two men flanked Klaus. One was fair, the other tanned. Their faces and features were a conflicting mixture of Arab and Asian. Rain continued to pour outside, but the men’s coats were dry. Fair grabbed Klaus’s arm and a knife blade was pressed flat to the man’s stomach. Tan wrapped an arm around her in a seemingly friendly embrace and brought the tip of another knife close to her ribs, pressing the blade into her coat.

“The medallion,” Fair said, motioning with his head. “On the table.”