by Rob Jones
“You’re late,” he said, but offered a belated smile. He kissed Lea on the cheek and nodded at Hawke and Ryan before turning to Alex. “And you must be the infamous Agent Nightingale?”
“Please, call me Alex.”
“Welcome, Alex,” Eden said. “And I took the liberty of arranging this wheelchair for you,” he pulled it from the bathroom and unfolded it. “It was all the hotel could rustle up in so short a time.”
“That’ll work just fine,” she said. “Thank you. Thanks for everything.”
“Not at all.”
Hawke and Ryan lowered her gently into the chair. As she made herself comfortable the balcony door opened and Lexi Zhang and Bradley Karlsson stepped into the room. Behind them Hawke saw the unmistakable figure of Scarlet Sloane smoking a cigarette. She was just about as sociable as he expected her to be.
He ignored the others and approached Lexi.
“Joe, I’m sorry about what happened, but…”
Hawke stared at her wordlessly for a long time before speaking. “You’re not lying to me, are you, Lexi?”
She shook her head.
“I mean, Sorokin really was holding your parents hostage?”
She nodded.
“And was going to kill them?”
Another nod.
“I need to hear you say it, Lexi.”
“It’s the truth, Joe – I swear. I was acting under coercion. I had no choice.”
Hawke frowned. “You could have told me – us – and we would have worked a way around it. Sent a team over to get your parents.”
“It seems easy to say that now, but Sorokin was very clear about my not involving anyone else. I thought I could take him out before handing over the map, but I should have spoken to you about it. I’m sorry, Joe.”
Hawke was unsure how to react, but unlike Scarlet Sloane he was inclined to believe her story, even if he harboured a shadow of a doubt at the same time. Either way, there was no time for recriminations now. The bottom line was she had contacted Eden and handed the map over to Scarlet and Karlsson in Berlin. That alone showed him her heart was in the right place and that she was telling him the truth, if not the whole truth.
“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll accept your word, but you’d better not be bullshitting me, Lexi.”
“I’m not, I swear…”
“So where are we?” Lea asked, changing the subject. “It really feels like we’ve been put through the wringer this time.”
Eden frowned. “The situation is critical. As you can see, Scarlet and Brad here got Agent Dragonfly out of Berlin after a little trouble in the zoo.”
“In a zoo?” Alex asked.
Eden opened his mouth to reply, but Lea cut him off.
“Forget about it,” she said. “That’s just the sort of thing that happens around here.”
“Unfortunately we lost the map, and now Vetrov has it.” He fixed his eyes on Alex. “Miss Reeve, I know you tried to explain things back in Moscow when you were under fire, but now you’re safe you need to tell me the whole story about why Vetrov ordered Kodiak to take you, and don’t even try saying it’s because your father is the Secretary of Defense.”
“No, it’s not that… and there’s a lot I couldn’t tell you back in Moscow…” Her words drifted away into the heavy anticipation of the room. She looked at the faces of the others, now staring at her expectantly.
These were the people she’d heard so much talk about, and now she was sharing a Venetian hotel room with them – Sir Richard Eden MP, Lea Donovan, Ryan Bale and the notorious Chinese assassin – all of whom she’d got to know thanks to Hawke’s inimitable descriptions. They were all here, including Brad Karlsson, and Cairo Sloane, whom she’d heard more about than all the others combined, and of course, there was Joe Hawke himself. He seemed taller than she’d imagined him, and somehow more thoughtful and deliberate in his movements that she thought he would be.
“We need to know, Alex!” Lea said.
“Of course… I’m sorry,” Alex replied, shocked out of her daydream by Lea’s voice. “Like I tried to tell Lea and Ryan back in Moscow, the reason Maxim Vetrov ordered my kidnapping is because of my research.”
“Your research?” Eden said.
She nodded sadly. “About this damned map, and the elixir of life. I’m so sorry.”
Alex rubbed her eyes. She looked stressed – she felt stressed. It had felt like forever since Kodiak had taken her from the apartment and drugged her. The nightmare of the Moscow Dacha and the crocodile enclosure was behind her now, but it had really left its mark on her.
“It all started when Joe texted me about Poseidon and asked me to run checks on you guys…”
Lea’s eyes widened. “He what?”
“Oh, come on, Lea,” Eden said calmly. “You can’t expect a man with Hawke’s background to work with someone without running at least a cursory check on their backgrounds.”
Lea pursed her lips. “I suppose...”
“We did the same to him, after all.”
Hawke smiled but made no reply.
“Anyway,” Alex continued, “after that he had me researching all kinds of stuff about the ancient Greek gods – Poseidon, the trident – you name it. The thing is I started to get into it and I sort of went my own way.”
Eden was inscrutable. “Go on.”
“As you know, I have extensive contacts in American intelligence...”
Ryan chuckled bitterly. “Isn’t that what they call an oxymoron?”
“No,” Lea said. “But you’re what they call an assy moron. Please continue, Alex.”
Alex glanced at them all, unsure what passed for banter, and what was insult. “I’m good at what I do – I had to be after the shooting in Bogotá,” she looked down at her legs. “I have time on my hands, so I devoted all that time to researching this damned map.”
“And what did all this devotion reveal to you?” asked Eden.
“First, I wouldn’t have been able to do any of my work without all the research Hawke already did.”
“You mean me, but carry on.” Ryan said.
“Sorry… I mean all of you – yes.”
“Well, it’s more me than all of us, but do continue.”
Lea rolled her eyes. “Ignore it.”
“Look… there’s still so much I don’t know, but the research led me from ancient Greece back to ancient Egypt.”
“Egypt?” Eden said.
Alex nodded. “Sure. I was expecting that anyway, but it was a great moment when it was confirmed. You see, it all started when Sheng Fang had that Lotus creature kill Felix Hoffman on the Paris Métro. That was when I started digging around for real. We knew he had worked under the direction of Anton Reichardt, so I started asking more questions about Reichardt himself.”
“I like where this is going,” Ryan said.
“Anton Reichardt was an eminent scholar in his own right, but not without controversy. Back when he was starting out on all this immortality stuff, there were accusations of plagiarism made against him by an amateur Italian Egyptologist by the name of Professor Giovanni Mazzarro.”
Eden looked at her, carefully following her every word. “Amateur?”
Alex nodded keenly. She was enjoying the conversation after so long spent on her own. “Amateur, sure. In fact Mazzarro was a curator at the Ca d’Oro.”
“The where?” Lea asked.
“The House of Gold,” Ryan said from the background. “It’s a six-hundred year-old palace on the Grand Canal. Its real name is Palazzo Santa Sofia.”
Alex gave him an admiring glance. “I’m impressed. Hawke said you knew a lot.”
Ryan turned and beamed with pride. “He said I knew a lot?”
“Well… not in so many words, but that was the drift.”
“I think I might have said something along the lines of big-headed twat,” Hawke said loudly.
“Gotcha.”
Eden frowned and returned to the point. “What kind of accu
sations were made against Reichardt, exactly?”
“That Reichardt had not only copied his ideas in an intellectual capacity, but had tried to steal some of Mazzarro’s actual, physical research.”
“Now that’s what I call an accusation!” Ryan said. “I told you nerds could get nasty.”
Lea rolled her eyes again. “What research did he steal?”
“Tried to steal, according to Mazzarro – but he didn’t get his hands on it. That stayed under lock and key for the rest of Mazzarro’s, and Reichardt’s life. But here’s the interesting thing – Mazzarro had a son who inherited not only his father’s obsession with ancient hieroglyphics, but also his research and notes.”
As she spoke, she couldn’t help but smile a little when she saw the expressions on the others’ faces.
“Shut your mouth, Ryan,” Scarlet said, “You look like you’re catching flies for fuck’s sake.”
“Sorry, but…tell us more!”
Alex grew more serious again. “What Mazzarro had put together was a vast collection of very ancient hieroglyphics – older than ancient Egypt, older even than Sumeria – and started working on a way to decode them – just to try and make sense of them, I guess. I’d never seen anything like them before, and neither had anyone else in the world if my Google searches were anything to go by.”
Ryan leaned in closer. “This is better than sex!”
“It is the way you try and do it,” Lea said, giving him a playful nudge with her elbow.
Alex laughed, but Eden was unmoved by the gag. “You made records of all these, naturally?”
“Of course, and more than that, I began to translate them. I started to create a sort of deciphering matrix, but I just didn’t have enough to go on without speaking with Dario Mazzarro, and it was around then I contacted him and we started working together.”
“And how did that go?” Eden asked.
“Awkward at first, but when he got to trust me it was good. I really needed his work, and his father’s work, to make any progress, so it was essential he agreed to help me, and in return I was able to offer my computer skills and contacts. Anyway, it was shortly after that when that Russian asshole kicked my door in and dragged me to Moscow, so that was where my research ended – and without Mazzarro I’m not sure how much progress I can make.”
“You’ve done well to get this far,” Eden said.
“Maybe,” Alex replied. “All I know is what I’ve already told you – that the glyphs on the map are older than any other hieroglyphics on the planet, and that Mazzarro is the only man who can really crack them.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Hawke said, glancing at Ryan.
Alex looked at Ryan and then back to Eden. “I don’t even know what Mazzarro was using as a reference for his own deciphering matrix, so I guess that’s why Vetrov decided now was the time to steal my research – he wanted me to give him Mazzarro’s name – because as I say, he’s the only person who can translate the map.”
“And now Vetrov knows he’s in Venice,” Lea said.
Alex nodded grimly while Scarlet lit another cigarette from the burning stub of her last one, undeterred by Hawke’s disapproving look.
Alex continued. “So as I say, Mazzarro has the only real knowledge in the world of those particular glyphs and this is why Vetrov needs him. He didn’t exactly have a great employee-rights scheme so I guess most academics capable of helping him out – supposing there are any – wouldn’t go within a hundred miles of him. He threw his last researcher into a crocodile enclosure, after all. That’s why I told everyone to come to Venice. It wasn’t just for the ice cream, you know.”
A subdued ripple of grim laughter went around the room, then Eden cleared his throat. “Where is this Mazzarro?”
“He works at the Doge’s Palace,” Alex said quietly.
Eden nodded. “Okay, good… Sounds like Vetrov must have been following you around the internet as you were doing your research. I guess when he saw the progress you’d made, he decided he wanted both you and your research, and more particularly that list of names, and that was when he must have decided to send that bastard to New York to get you.”
Alex looked at the others in the heavy silence. The smell of Scarlet’s cigarette smoke drifted into the room on a sea breeze. Lea smiled awkwardly, but Ryan just stared out the window. Karlsson shrugged his broad shoulders and felt around in his pockets for a cigarette even though he had quit ten years ago – it was an old habit of his to combat the silence.
Eden flicked the locks on an expensive Samsonite suitcase and revealed a small array of weapons.
“So this is the plan. I will go with Hawke, Lea and Bradley to the Doge’s Palace and track down this Mazzarro character, while Ryan and Alex will stay here at HQ and start working on Lexi’s picture of the map. Scarlet and Lexi, you’re to remain here in case Vetrov has tracked us. The last thing I want is an assault on this hotel and Ryan and Alex vulnerable to attack.” He turned to face them all. “Clear?”
“Clear as Irish crystal, Rich,” Lea said, but no one else spoke.
Eden tossed her a brand new Glock 19 and a box of ammunition. “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”
“As always,” she said, sliding the versatile black pistol into her holster.
Eden continued to hand out the weapons as he spoke. “There’s no doubt Maxim Vetrov is the most organized and ruthless enemy we’ve faced and we all know he’s got the best of us more than once.”
“You can say that again,” Ryan said.
Eden slid a pistol into a shoulder holster beneath his smart, linen jacket. “Well, this is our chance to turn the tables on him and get the map back into safe hands. We know he has the information about Mazzarro but we also know we’re ahead of him thanks to your destruction of his complex. But the fact is he’s probably in Venice as we speak and we can’t let him get to Dario Mazzarro before us, because then he’ll have both the map and the man who can translate it.”
“Which is not good,” Lexi said.
“All right, everyone,” Eden said, looking each one of them in the eye. “It’s time to bring this to an end. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Eden, Hawke, Lea and Karlsson moved silently through the bustling crowd in San Marco’s Square, each armed with concealed Glocks and with the clear goal of warning Dr Dario Mazzarro about the imminent danger he faced, and how his life’s research and deciphering work could now at last be put to the test on the map – once it was recovered.
As they walked, Venice seemed to swallow them up. The Doge’s Palace rose up from the square and Hawke could see why it was one of the city’s most famous landmarks. Built over seven hundred years ago to serve as the residence of the Doge, or chief magistrate of Venice, the enormous Gothic building shone in the sun and cast its vast shadow across the busy lagoon.
Hawke and the others were anxious as they stepped out of the safety of the shaded colonnade and weaved into the relaxed crowd of tourists. Checking for threats, they walked across the famous courtyard on their way to the glistening red Verona marble of the Foscari Arch and the Giants’ Staircase.
“Is this it?” Lea asked.
Eden nodded but made no reply.
“Looks like a giant wedding cake.”
Passing the ancient Sansovino statues of Mars and Neptune, they shuffled up the steps on their way to Dr Mazzarro’s office.
Eden knocked on the door and a moment later it swung open to reveal a middle-aged man in a raggedy tweed jacket and baggy moleskin trousers. His hair was black and silver and a mess of curls not unlike a bird’s nest. A pair of tortoiseshell glasses balanced on the bridge of his prominent nose.
“Si?”
“Dottore Dario Mazzarro?”
“Si. Chi siete tutti?”
Eden spoke in rapid Italian for a few seconds and Hawke watched the Doctor’s eyebrows gradually rise higher as the explanation went on.
Mazzarro looked at the foreigners outsid
e his door suspiciously for a few moments and then went to close the door on them, but then the sound of gunfire and desperate, terrified screams emanating from below worked the magic that Eden’s Italian had failed to do.
Eden tightened his jaw and stared down the long corridor. “The bastards must have worked out where we are!”
Without wasting a second Mazzarro stepped into the corridor and slammed the door behind him, fumbling the key in his lock.
Hawke grabbed his arm and stopped him. “These people don’t need keys to open doors, Doctor Mazzarro, and we need to get you out of here right now.”
“But how do I know you’re who you say you are – you could be criminals!”
More gunshots and screams from downstairs.
Hawke looked him in the eye. “Your choice.”
They ran downstairs away from the office, desperate to get away before any innocent people got hurt, but before they’d got a hundred yards the sound of more automatic gunfire reverberated in the ancient halls of the palace. It was followed by yet more terrified screams of innocent tourists and the sound of stampeding as they desperately rushed the fire exits to escape the terror.
“Damn it!” Eden cried as the gunshots grew closer.
“This way!” Hawke said.
They sprinted along a corridor before entering an enormous, highly decorative room with a beautiful coffered ceiling. Below, the walls were covered in grand, eighteenth century oil paintings.
“This is the Scarlet Chamber,” Mazzarro said. “We need to go through that far door. It’s the quickest way out of here – and then we must go straight to the police… But wait! We need to go back to my office – all my research notebooks are there and we cannot let these people get their hands on them.”
“Where are they in your office, exactly?” Hawke asked.
“Hidden…”
After a few seconds of wrangling, the Italian eventually gave up the location of the notes as they moved toward the door.
Outside the chamber, it sounded like someone was spraying bullets up the walls just for the hell of it. A second later a man carrying a Russian submachine gun burst through the door beneath the vast Paradise painting which stretched across the entire far wall.
