“Looks okay,” Rafael said.
He agreed.
So he shifted the boat’s throttle into neutral, then reversed the engine.
CASSIOPEIA SMILED. SHE’D BEEN RIGHT. THEY WOULDN’T BE FOOLISH enough to dock at the village. They’d intentionally reconnoitered the other canal that ran beside the basilica as their destination.
She watched the boat’s outline turn one hundred eighty degrees and leave the canal. She reached back, found the gun Thorvaldsen had sent, and chambered a round. She gripped both the gun and the cloth bag and fled her hiding place, keeping her eyes locked out on the water.
Viktor and his accomplice found the lagoon.
Engines revved.
The boat veered right, beginning its circumnavigation of the island.
She trotted through the soggy night, toward the churches, one stop to make along the way.
THIRTY-EIGHT
STEPHANIE WAS PUZZLED BY MALONE’S PRESENCE. ONLY ONE WAY she could have been found. No time at the moment, though, to consider the implications.
“Do it now,” she said into the lapel mike.
Three pops echoed across the piazza and one of the armed men crumpled to the pavement. She and Malone dove to the damp flagstones as the remaining man sought cover. Malone reacted with the skill of the agent he’d once been and rolled himself back into the arcade, firing twice, trying to flush the remaining attacker out into the open square.
People scattered in a frenzy, as a panic overtook San Marco.
Malone sprang to his feet and hugged the wet side of one of the arches. The assailant stood fifty feet away, caught in a crossfire between Malone and the rifleman Stephanie had stationed atop the building on the north side.
“Care to tell me what’s happening?” Malone asked, not taking his eyes off the man.
“Ever heard of bait?”
“Yeah, and it’s a bitch on that hook.”
“I have men in the square.”
He risked a look around, but saw nothing. “They invisible?”
She looked around, too. No one was coming their way. Everyone was fleeing toward the basilica. A familiar anger swelled inside her.
“Police will be here any second,” he said.
She realized that could be a problem. Her rules at the Magellan Billet discouraged agents from involving the locals. They were usually not helpful or were downright hostile, and she’d seen evidence of that, firsthand, in Amsterdam.
“He’s on the move,” Malone said, as he rushed forward.
She followed and said into the mike, “Get out of here.”
Malone was running to an exit that led from the arcade, away from the square, back into the dark streets of Venice. At the exit’s end a pedestrian bridge arced over one of the canals.
She saw Malone race across it.
MALONE KEPT RUNNING. CLOSED SHOPS LINED BOTH SIDES OF THE ridiculously narrow lane. Just ahead, the street right-angled. A few pedestrians turned the corner. He slowed and concealed the gun beneath his jacket, keeping his fingers tight on the trigger.
He stopped at the next corner, embracing the gleam of a wet store window. He swallowed hot, heavy gulps of air and carefully peered around the edge.
A bullet whizzed past and ricocheted off the stone.
Stephanie found him.
“Isn’t this foolish?” she asked.
“Don’t know. It’s your party.”
He risked another look.
Nothing.
He abandoned his position and rushed forward another thirty feet to where the street turned again. A glance around the corner and he saw more closed shops and deep shadows and a misty murk that could conceal almost anything.
Stephanie approached, holding a gun.
“Aren’t you the little field agent?” he said. “Carrying a weapon now?”
“Seems I’ve had a lot of use for one lately.”
So had he, but she was right. “This is foolish. We’re going to get shot or arrested if we keep going. What are you doing here?”
“That was going to be my question for you. This is my job. You’re a bookseller. Why did Danny Daniels send you?”
“He said they’d lost contact with you.”
“No one tried to contact me.”
“Seems our president apparently wants me involved, but didn’t have the courtesy to ask.”
Shouts and screams could be heard from behind them in the square.
But he had a greater concern. Torcello. “I have a boat docked just beyond San Marco, at the quayside.” He pointed right at another alleylike street. “We should be able to get there if we head that way.”
“Where are we going?” Stephanie asked.
“To help someone who needs even more help than you do.”
VIKTOR KILLED THE ENGINE AND ALLOWED THE BOAT TO GENTLY touch the stone dock. A muted scene of slate grays, muddy greens, and pale blues engulfed them. The iron silhouette of the basilica rose thirty meters away, just past a jagged patch of stubbled shadows that defined a garden and orchard. Rafael emerged from the aft cabin carrying two shoulder bags and said, “Eight packs and one turtle ought to be enough. If we torch the bottom, the rest will burn easily.”
Rafael understood the ancient potion and Viktor had come to rely on that expertise. He watched as his partner gently laid the rucksacks down and stepped back into the cabin, toting up one of the robotic turtles.
“He’s charged and ready.”
“Why is it a ‘he’?”
“I don’t know. Seems appropriate.”
Viktor smiled. “We need a rest.”
“A few days off would be good. Maybe the minister will give us the time, as a reward.”
He laughed. “The minister doesn’t believe in rewards.”
Rafael adjusted the straps on the two packs. “A few days in the Maldives would be great. Lying on a beach. Warm water.”
“Stop dreaming. Not going to happen.”
Rafael shouldered one of the heavy rucksacks. “Nothing wrong with dreaming. Especially out here, in this
