“If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Kitsune,” Nicholas said, “it’s to never underestimate her. I have a feeling I know how she did it, given her tactics at the Met.”
“She got hired as a guard?” Lia said.
“Yes.”
Ben said, “Well, whatever she did, it was amazing, given the legendary Topkapi security.”
Adam said, “No doubt in my mind now, I want to marry her.”
Ben laughed. “You haven’t had the joy of meeting her before, Adam. We have. She’s a master of disguise, and she’s perfectly willing and able to stick to a role for a long time. She’s focused, single-minded when she’s on a job. I agree with Lia, she infiltrated the museum staff, probably as a guard.”
Mike said, “She’s not a shock-and-awe kind of thief. She’d have studied the Topkapi as she would a puzzle. She doesn’t give up. And that’s why she’s the best of the best.”
“And still free,” Nicholas added.
Adam said, “So who hired her?”
“I have some ideas about that.” Nicholas glanced at his watch. “We have seven hours left before we land in Venice. Take half an hour to think, then we’ll brief. Then everyone needs to sleep. We don’t know what we’re walking into, and if we’re going to be operational for a few days, rest is paramount now. So get moving. Thanks, Ben. If you want, you can take a nap, too.”
Ben sighed. “I’ve always wanted to go to Venice.”
CHAPTER TEN
Mysore Base Camp
Gobi Desert
When Cassandra and Ajax arrived in the Gobi, the dig had halted. Their team was watching for them, standing in a row like a group of household servants, so excited they could barely contain themselves.
Their site lead, Dr. Vincent Gregory, rushed to open the car door. He practically pulled Cassandra out.
“We have good news. We didn’t want to tell you in the air. And we stopped the moment we saw it. We have to hurry, there’s a storm coming, but you must see this.”
Cassandra’s heart began to pound. When she and Ajax were nearly nineteen years old, their mother’s last transmission had come in from this exact location, her voice crackling across the cell phone lines, her words not understandable, but her face, her beautiful face, glowing. They heard her say something about a storm bearing down. Then, nothing more for the next decade. When they’d gotten to the site after the horrendous storm had subsided, the dig had been swallowed by the desert, then under hundreds of feet of sand. The Genesis Group had been trying to uncover the site ever since.
The western edge of the dig was roped off. The skies in the distance were red with the oncoming storm. But there was sun for now, and when they grew closer, Cassandra could see something flashing.
“Is that—”
Vincent Gregory was grinning from ear to ear. “The moment we saw gold, we stopped and marked it off. There’s something big down there. The scanners show a rectangular structure. It’s the right size.”
So long, so long—could it be real? She whispered, “The Ark?”
Gregory handed her a brush.
She dropped to her knees and heard it: bees, hundreds of bees, buzzing there from beneath the dirt. She brushed gently and uncovered a curved edge of gold. The bees buzzed louder. She continued to brush, even more gently.
Ajax dropped to his knees beside her. “It’s a wing,” he whispered. “It’s a cherubim’s wing.”
She looked up. “Don’t you hear that, the bees?”
Gregory said, “Hear what?”
Ajax lightly touched the wing. “It feels warm and it’s sending the warmth into me.”
She continued to brush off the remaining sand. “Ajax, it’s buzzing loudly now.”
“The warmth is stronger, but I hear no buzzing.”
Of course he couldn’t hear the buzzing, it was meant only for her. “I can’t believe it.” She slipped her fingers under the wing and slowly lifted it, gathering it to her chest. “Oh no.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” But he could already see. The gold wing wasn’t attached to anything.
“Then the Ark is still down there. Hurry, shift the earth away. Cassandra, move away.”
The team got to work immediately.
They stood, Cassandra still holding the wing. “I heard it calling to me and you felt its warmth. I’m sorry, Ajax, but whatever is below us isn’t the Ark.”
Gregory looked up, as did two other archaeologists digging with their small plastic scoops. “How do you know? How could a chunk of gold break off?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and held the golden wing close. “Feel, Ajax, touch it and feel the warmth coming off of the gold. For you. And it sings for me. It’s definitely a part of the Ark. It was here, I’m sure of it. It’s not here anymore, though. We’d feel it.”
Ajax said, “The wing broke off from the Ark. We know it was here. Keep searching.”
The archaeologists finally uncovered a large crate. When they eased it from the ground, they saw the stylized G for Genesis on the rotting wood.
Gregory sat back on his heels. “I thought, I’d hoped . . . I must tell you, we uncovered the bodies of all the members of your mother’s team. But the count is off. We are missing one female. Based on the evidence we’ve gathered from the bodies, remnants of clothing and jewelry, your mother is not here.”
Cassandra felt a bolt of excitement but it quickly faded. “But how is that possible? You must be wrong, Dr. Gregory. Where are Mother’s bones?”
“I don’t know. I do know they aren’t here, with the others. Another thing—the skeletons are mostly intact. We didn’t see anything that speaks to a cause of death. No bullet holes, no broken bones. Yet all the team members were somehow killed. Not only are your mother’s bones not here, neither is the Ark.”
Ajax said, “It must mean she took the Ark. But where would she have gone? Why wouldn’t she have contacted us? And why would she leave behind the wing, and all the team members, dead?”
Cassandra had no answer. She felt numb.
For an instant, Ajax wanted to slit Gregory’s throat, but he gained control, shrugged. “Someone double-crossed them—perhaps they were poisoned, it’s a decent explanation, a very fast-acting poison—and they simply dropped where they’d stood. And whoever it was stole the Ark from the site and took Mother captive, someone who knew the prophecy, knew they couldn’t open the Ark without her. She could still be alive.”
“She could, yes,” Gregory said, but he didn’t believe it for an instant. “Whatever happened here—it’s a mystery. I’m so sorry.”
One of the technicians, Maccio, rose, dusted his hands on his trousers. “There’s nothing else here, only the crate.”
The sandstorm struck and they ran for their tents, the assistants dragging the crate with them.
Cassandra watched Ajax stalk around their small tent, knew he was cursing, but she couldn’t hear him over the shrieking winds. She knew without looking that the skies were dark red.
Once Ajax had gotten a hold of himself, he said again, “Mother isn’t here, and neither is the Ark. All of our work has been for nothing. Nothing!” He flung a canteen against the tent wall. Cassandra calmly picked it up, unscrewed the lid, and took a long drink. Even safe inside the tent, the sand still somehow managed to get into everything. She handed the canteen to Ajax.
She said, “We have to believe Mother made it out of the Gobi, either on her own or she was forced by someone who took her, someone who killed the team. So there is more work to do and we will do it. We will contact Grandfather and start the search again.”
Ajax cursed, then threw himself onto the camp cot. “Fine. Call Jason. Tell him we failed, and listen to him moan about the thousands of people dying for nothing. And just where do we tell him to look now?”
“We didn’t fail, Ajax. We’ve discovered a piece of the Ark.” She picked up the gold wing and held it close, rocking, like a mother would a babe. “We know someone took the Ark by force and m
urdered the team. Without Grandfather’s storm, we never would have found this. Grandfather will be pleased.”
“The old bastard will blame us, you know he will. Anything happens that’s not to his liking, he blames us.”
Cassandra said, “Then we won’t tell him.”
There was a knock on the tent pole, and Gregory came in, his eyes wild. “Quickly, come with me.”
They tied heavy cotton scarves around their faces and stepped out into the storm. They followed him along a rope line. Three tents away, Maccio was standing over the crate.
He said, “Dr. Gregory wanted to x-ray the crate before we opened it.”
Gregory spoke over him. “There’s something inside, but we can’t tell what it is. We didn’t want to open it without you.” He held up a tablet, showed them the screen of the x-rayed crate. They saw something that looked like a cross wedged against a side of the crate.
Ajax took Cassandra’s hand. “Open it. Now.”
The wood was old, very old, and came apart easily. Cassandra saw the flash of metal. Maccio lifted an object out of the shifting sands that nearly filled the crate.
Gregory examined it. “It’s nothing but an old soil core, to collect soil samples.” He started to throw it away.
Ajax said, “Wait, careful, Gregory. There’s something inside of it.”
Maccio set the soil core on a table, and Ajax teased out a piece of paper.
“Hurry, Ajax, hurry.”
He carefully unrolled it, looked at her, eyes gleaming. “It’s a map. It’s Mother’s handwriting.”
She looked down to see the map was covered with topographic images, with dozens of circular wavy lines radiating from the center. Ajax said, “The concentric lines keep getting smaller and that indicates altitude. It’s a mountain. Turn it over, Cassandra, carefully now.”
On the back was a handwritten note. It, too, was in her mother’s writing, but the letters looked somehow strange, curved and looped, unlike her mother’s spare, straight cursive, and the words looked somehow ancient, which was ridiculous. Still, her hands trembled as she read aloud:
The answers to the true resting place of the Ark are in the pope’s letters. My beloved children, use this knowledge wisely.
“But where is it?” Dr. Gregory asked.
Smiling, Cassandra carefully turned the map back over and pointed to the legend in the corner. “Longitude and latitude. Ajax, it’s Castel Rigone. The Ark is at home.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Venice, Italy
Kitsune walked through the Piazza San Marco wearing a cream-colored straw hat over a long blond wig, shorts, and sandals, and following the tail end of a tour group. The guide stopped in front of the basilica and began droning on about Saint Mark. Kitsune watched the pigeons congregate in the square, flocking about tourists throwing bread for them.
Children ran screaming into the flocks of birds, making them scatter.
Drummond and Caine were due in an hour, which meant backup in the shape of the Carabinieri should be there soon. Michaela the rule follower would have it all set up.
Kitsune had arrived early, as always, in order to scope out the square, locate possible escapes. And there were multiple ways out of the piazza. After she was satisfied she’d found an appropriate bolt-hole, she sat down at a café in the middle of the piazza, at a table in the shade, near one of the many mini-orchestras playing Italian music for the tourists.
She would wait. She took off her sunglasses and began her watch.
She would make sure Drummond and Caine were safe, even if Kitsune herself was not. She owed it to them.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mike wasn’t much impressed with Venice until their water taxi went around a promontory and into a world of sprawling estates with brick walls and small paths leading from the individual docks. Then their driver motored into the heart of the city and Mike didn’t think she’d ever seen anything so utterly surreal, like a movie set with too many extras roaming everywhere. Everything was so very old, so precariously situated, yet this incredible place had endured.
And it sure wasn’t Omaha. Mike laughed at that thought and raised her face to the hazy sky, and breathed in the lovely smell, the smell of magic. Nicholas smiled, took her hand. “This is your second trip to Europe, but alas, you’re still not here as a tourist. When this is done, Mike, we’ll come back.”
“You promise?”
“Oh yes,” he said. He’d also told her the magic smell was gone in August, when the weather was hot and ripe, but she didn’t think she’d mind it. Everything was like an impressionist painting and she’d been plunked into it.
Adam was hunkered down, his laptop out. He looked up. “Kitsune was right to tell us not to take the airport vaporetto—it would take an hour to get to the hotel. At least this way, we’re going fast.”
Nicholas’s hair was blown back from his face, and he was grinning like a maniac. “The water taxis are much more fun, anyway. The vaporetti are too slow.”
Lia said, “It was nice of Kitsune to send a boat for us.”
Mike pulled herself away from the glory of Venice and opened her gun case, took out her Glock. She slipped it into its leather holster and attached it to her belt on her right hip. Nicholas raised a brow. “Don’t you think it’s a bit early to arm yourself, Mike?”
Mike said, “This is Kitsune we’re meeting. Bad guys are after her, they could be in a gondola coming right at us. They could be waiting for us on the dock. Nope, I think all of us should be armed. Now.”
“You’re right.” Nicholas stepped from the prow of the boat, sat on the interior bench, and followed suit. He put his Glock into its stiff leather holster and affixed it to his belt, then shrugged back into his soft leather jacket. Everyone followed suit, except Adam, who had no training. Nicholas knew he’d have to address that sooner rather than later. He couldn’t have Adam helpless.
Louisa joined Mike at the prow. “I’ve always loved the smell of Venice. It’s the smell of the sea overlaid with gasoline from the boats’ engines.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“My dad’s a diplomat. We traveled everywhere.” She pointed. “There’s our hotel coming up, the Savoia and Jolanda. We never stayed there, Mom always preferred the Danieli. So many tourists wandering around, having fun, admiring everything. It’s hard to think there could be real danger here.”
The taxi was slowing, approaching the shallower lane that would take them to the dock near their hotel.
Mike said, “Okay, everybody, stick together. We don’t know what’s to come today, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
Adam elbowed her in the ribs. “Gosh, Mom, do you want us to have a buddy, too?”
She punched his arm. “I’m serious.”
Adam said, “We’re on alert, don’t worry.”
“I am worried. You’re green, Adam, sort of like an avocado.”
Louisa laughed. “He’ll be fine once he’s on land, right, Adam?”
“I like avocadoes,” Adam said, and swallowed.
Nicholas scanned the San Zaccaria dock. “I wish we weren’t all arriving at once. Should have thought of that,” he said to Mike, who stood at his shoulder.
“Too late now. Besides, if someone’s watching, we’d have been nailed coming in anyway, even two at a time.”
Nicholas said, louder, so they could all hear, “Here we are.”
The boat’s captain, doubtless handpicked by Kitsune because he’d keep his mouth shut, fiddled with the mooring ropes. When Mike stepped onto the dock, she saw him speaking into a walkie-talkie. Nicholas said, “I do hope he’s talking to Kitsune, telling her we’re here. Everyone, stay alert. We have no idea what’s going to happen.”
The hotel was dark stucco, old, warm and inviting. Inside, it was as advertised—wood and glass and comfortable. A blonde behind the counter greeted them, her eyes never leaving Nicholas’s face. He leaned close and spoke to her in rapid-fire Italian.
The res
t of them stood back, scanning the lobby. Mike saw a group of people start to come in, then pull up short, turn around, and leave. Some things were always the same. No matter if they were on the moon, they still looked like cops.
Nicholas began passing out keys and instructions.
“Lia, set up our comms, I want to know everything’s working. Adam, get online, build a router repeater to get a decent signal, and scramble it six ways to Sunday. There are far too many open Wi-Fis in the area. Louisa, until there’s forensics, you’ll keep your eyes on Kitsune—when we find her—and on us.” He paused, frowned, “Our receptionist put Mike on the third floor, everyone else is on the second. Drop your things and come to my room in fifteen. The receptionist is having coffee sent up. We’ll down some caffeine, and get this over with.”
Everyone straggled toward the bank of elevators. Mike and Nicholas rode up together. “I hope you don’t mind separate rooms.”
“No, this isn’t fun time, it’s work,” she said. “The jet lag, it’s really getting to me. I want to wash my face and fall on the bed. You said fifteen minutes, plenty of time.”
He cupped her chin, gave her a quick kiss. “It is indeed. I could help you unpack your go-bag. It looks pretty heavy to me.”
She kissed him back, patted his face. “It’s obvious you weren’t thinking ahead. You’re into details, Nicholas, and fifteen minutes isn’t enough time for you.”
He cursed under his breath. She was right. He particularly loved all her details. Mike read him perfectly, laughed. “I’ll drop my bag and come down to your room before we meet up with the others, and head out to meet Kitsune.” She waggled her fingers at him as the doors slid closed.
She went up another floor and opened the door to her room. Dark brown walls, a minuscule balcony that faced the hotel next door, and a tiny bathroom she prayed had some hot water. “Well, thank you, Ms. Blonde Receptionist, for my fine accommodation and the lovely view of Venice.”