The Golden Vendetta

by Tony Abbott

  He was trying to predict which of them would win the contest, when his phone buzzed. It was the Copernicus Room in Madrid, responding to the text he’d sent after receiving Galina’s.

  Company logo of Ugo Drangheta, industrialist. Known to require his inner circle to wear this tattoo. Amassed his fortune in real estate, airlines, steel factories, shipping after breakup of Yugoslavia. Chief residences include Helsinki, Shanghai, Hanoi, Moscow, Casablanca. Born Sarajevo October 1974, unmarried, parents deceased, one sibling—Uliana Biszku, pilot, joined Order 2013—deceased.

  Ebner shuddered as he read those last words. He knew the name Uliana Biszku, though he knew for certain Galina did not. How could this have happened? The pilot had volunteered for the assignment. Had anyone known she had a brother? How will I tell Galina?

  Just then, proving her uncanny ability to be everywhere at once, Galina approached him, a dervish of robes and scarves, hovering above the rubbish of the street. His heart pounded like the quick rapping of a lover on a door.

  And then, as she removed a scarf, a shock. Galina’s face. Her face was the color of ash; her eyes were hollow; she was but a ghost of herself. So the treatment had not worked after all. Did the girl know how she looked? He was aghast, dizzy, his heart fluttering, but he would say nothing.

  “The doctor talked,” she said softly.

  “As in he talked too much?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Ebner was well aware of Galina’s habit of cleaning up the space around her. “You’ll run out of them one day, you know. Doctors.”

  She shot him a look. “Not if you keep finding them for me.”

  “Of course, Galina. It is what I do.”

  “Walk with me, Ebner. And tell me, what news?”

  He swallowed slowly. “The would-be assassin on the train was an employee of Ugo Drangheta. Drangheta is . . . the brother of a woman named Uliana Biszku.”

  “Who is . . . ?”

  “Who was the pilot of the plane that crashed into Olsztyn Castle in April,” he said. “A mistake was made in our lower ranks, although I must say that the pilot volunteered for the assignment.”

  “Not for her death,” said Galina, who displayed less emotion than he had anticipated.

  “No,” said Ebner. “But this sudden appearance of a hitman on the train suggests that our pilot’s bereaved brother seeks retribution.”

  “By attacking Gerrenhausen and inserting himself into the hunt for the relics?”

  “Rather, I think, to force a confrontation with you,” he said.

  After several interminable minutes in which the crush of individuals streaming through the streets threatened to overwhelm them, Galina said, “The search for the astrolabe fragments.”

  He blew out a breath. Good, another topic. “We have not been idle. Over two hundred pieces of the astrolabe’s main framing mechanism, both large and small, have been excavated. The majority of them are gathered at Station Two in Berlin. Others in Kraków, Prague, Salzburg, elsewhere. Together they make, naturally, no more than a pile of bones, if I may say so. An unassembled skeleton lacking sinews, flesh, organs, blood. We have gained some knowledge of the remaining relics. One, for example, appears to be forged of ancient iron and bears the shape of a wolf. Our investigation is ongoing.”

  “I had a vision in my long sleep, Ebner,” she said. “Operation Aurora.”

  “Aurora. What is it?”

  “It will proceed at full throttle simultaneous to the hunting down of the relics. I’m texting you a location. Arrange with the colonel to retrieve all the fragments and deliver them there at one p.m. Central European Time on Tuesday, the tenth, six days from today.”

  Ebner checked his phone uneasily. Appearing on the screen were the coordinates 42°27′14.4″N, 13°34′33.6″E. He copied them into his GPS app and watched as it pinpointed the location on a map. His uneasiness deepened.

  “My dear Galina, I know this location. Of course I do. But is this wise—”

  “The world is against me, my health demands quick action . . . And so, a vendetta against them all.”

  “Vendetta? Galina, perhaps you are not ready to reveal the full scope of Operation Aurora to me—that is fine—but would a more careful consideration—”

  “There is no time.” She shot him another text. “Make these things happen on the same timetable. Aurora rises in the next six days. See that you rise with it.”

  She looked not at him but through him, beyond an open temple door to the darkness within. “What of the Kaplans?”

  He swallowed, glancing at the new text. “Information has surfaced that they are on the Continent, posing as a family called the Parkers. We are zeroing in on them as we speak. The family enjoys the help of a wealthy man of considerable resources and contacts worldwide. Beyond this, the Kaplans have grown very smart very quickly. Apparently, one cannot pursue, kidnap, torture, or harass them without their rising to the occasion.”

  She refocused. “Good. Until we know which ones are expendable, we need them all. I will deal with them. You have your orders.”

  Galina drifted away on a cloud of midnight blue and gold and flashes of silver.

  Ebner followed her movement until he could no longer see her.

  His orders, then. According to that last text, all manner of things must be made to happen across the globe simultaneously. In the Kara Sea in the Russian Arctic. In Pyongyang, North Korea. In the waters north of Cyprus. All part of Galina’s brand-new vendetta against the world. Aurora. The goddess of the golden dawn.

  He opened his phone, reversed the camera lens, and gazed at himself. His fingers went unconsciously to his face, smoothing the eyebrows, shaping the unshapable wisps of sweat-soaked hair that lay matted across his scalp. A revolting blemish on his left cheek, a weak chin, four eyes. A specimen.

  And yet . . . who in this present world is as close, hour after hour, to the brilliant and ghostly Galina Krause? I held her in my arms once for countless seconds, after all. Who is as close to her?

  No one is.

  Only Ebner von Braun.

  Only me.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Nice, France

  June 4

  8:11 a.m.

  Lily looked out the corridor window as their train slowed to a clattering crawl toward the Gare de Nice-Ville. She was outside the boys’ compartment and had just overheard Darrell and Wade whispering.

  “Lily’s in a mood.”

  “She’ll be okay, Dana. I hope.”

  “We both hope. And don’t call me Dana.”

  The world outside was gorgeous, a postcard of palm trees and blue and green houses and red tile roofs and café umbrellas and golden light and infinite sky.

  It twisted her stomach to have people thinking things about her, and she had to get them to stop. It would mean doing the opposite of what she felt like doing. It had been tough to be awesome after she first saw her parents actually screaming at each other. Sometimes she simply failed. But she’d try harder. Be bubbly. Extra bright.

  That she couldn’t let anyone into her grief was either just plain weird or deep or whatever, but her crumbling family was her business.

  So I’ll be perky and sparkly.

  Until I can’t anymore.

  “So beautiful,” she announced brightly, turning as the boys entered the corridor. “Isn’t it? France plus sunshine plus palm trees? Wow.”

  Becca was now at the window with her. “I can’t wait to get out in it.”

  “We’ll have to wait for the transfer,” Wade said. “The actors.”

  Earlier, Roald—who was with Sara now in the dining car—had called Terence to tell him of their change of plans. To throw off any agents of the Order who might be waiting in Nice, the best Terence could do on such short notice was to arrange for a group of local actors, including two boys and two girls roughly their ages, to impersonate the Parkers and the Benson girls continuing on to Rome, while the real them slipped off the train at Nice. The impersonation plan
reminded Lily of her own stratagem to escape a killer back in London. Terence said the actors in Nice had worked with him before, so they didn’t find the request strange, and they understood its possible danger. Finally, during the transition, the actors would pass over a brand-new set of passports to them.

  “I hope my name will be Erik, with a k,” Darrell said. “It’s how I see myself.”

  Lily tried to come up with a snappy comeback, but couldn’t. Instead she smiled. Brightly.

  The station ceiling slid slowly overhead as the train rolled toward the platform.

  She kind of liked the open-closed ceilings of large European railroad terminals, arching over them like a giant pair of iron-and-glass tunnels. And here, beyond the smell of diesel exhaust and scorched rubber were the lush, lemony-green scents of summer from the town and the Mediterranean a half mile away.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to be excited after all.

  Darrell popped back into the room and restuffed as many changes of clothes as he could into his backpack. They would leave some luggage for the actors.

  “Do you really think this will work?” Wade said, doing the same as his stepbrother. “I mean, will the Order be fooled?”

  “If the kid playing me is as handsome as me, sure.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Then no,” said Darrell. “Galina will know within a couple of hours that we’ve gotten off here.” He nodded out at the station. “We’re in Order territory. We’re always in it, and we’re never out of it, but we’re in it again, which is where we always are anyway.”

  As Darrellish as that was, Lily felt pretty much the same. The compartment she’d shared with Sara and Becca had seemed a safe little haven, even with the shooting so close, but that part of the journey was over. They’d be out on the streets soon, prey to the spying eyes of the Order.

  Darrell heaved his overnight bag onto the luggage rack, then whispered to her, “You’re thinking the same thing I am, aren’t you?”

  She stepped back. “Before I answer, tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “You’re thinking that if the bookseller is working for Galina, and he shot Tattoo Man, then who’s Tattoo Man?”

  “I wasn’t thinking that,” Lily said, “but I could.”

  “That’s our first mystery,” Wade said, and tried to sling Becca’s go-bag over his shoulder, but she took it back with a mock-annoyed look. “If someone new is after the relics, we need to know.”

  Darrell pointed toward the platform. “There’s one cool kid and a dorky stepbrother type on our platform, so they must be me and you, in that order.”

  “I’m laughing,” Wade said, straight-faced. “Really. I am.”

  Even amid the usual flurry of activity that accompanied a train pulling into the station, it was easy to spot the singular odd factor—a half-dozen waiting policemen, some in uniform, some not. A contingent of medical personnel appeared, pushing a wheeled gurney through the crowd toward their compartment.

  Sara and Roald met the kids in the corridor outside the room. “I’m texting the actors,” she said. “Keep your heads down, everyone. We’ll make the switch in the first rush of passengers. With hope the Order won’t catch on.”

  “Unless it’s already too late,” said Darrell. “Take a look at them.”

  Lily shot a glance into the crowd at a young man bouncing a child in his arms. Both the man and the infant wore pink shirts and green shorts. “That’s a fashion statement, not the Teutonic Order—”

  “Not them. Them.” Darrell moved her head in his hands three inches to the left. Who’d told him he could just do that, she had no idea. “The two goons at the luggage rack,” he said. “They’re pretending to load baggage on the rack, but all the stuff they throw on, they take right back off. Dead giveaway.”

  It was true. The porters appeared to be working, but as they moved the luggage on and off the rack, they were really scanning the crowd under the brims of their caps. Lily felt the familiar combination of thrill and nausea in her stomach. “Uncle Roald—”

  “I see them,” he said. “Good eyes, Darrell.”

  “Oh, I know,” he said. “I’ve been practicing two months for this.”

  The train finally stopped with a soft hush, followed by a sigh of exhaust and the slight squealing of brakes. Then, as if a director had shouted, “Action!” everything moved. A swarm of people rushed up to the train cars, while Gerrenhausen was now out on the platform, being drawn away on the edge of the crowd by two policemen. Two other officers helped the medical crew remove the body.

  “The luggage guys. Look,” said Becca.

  No sooner had the police disappeared into the station with the bookseller than one of the two porters left the luggage cart and swiftly wove through the crowd after them. The other one got on his cell phone and turned toward the train.

  “He’s looking for us,” said Wade. “Avert your faces.”

  In the chaos of incoming and outgoing passengers, Terence’s actors positioned themselves in front of the six of them. The Kaplans descended and pretended to have just exited the train to stretch their legs, while the “mother” of the group handed Sara their new passports. Lily saw the second “railroad porter” hop on the train after the actors. Good. One less agent to deal with.

  Roald guided them into the background, and they slipped inside the terminal, where Sara quickly distributed the new IDs.

  “The Parkers are now the McKay family,” she said. “I’m Theresa.”

  Darrell whipped his passport open. “Are you kidding me?”

  Wade peeked over his shoulder. “Robin? Wow, bro, I’m sorry. I’m Ross. Robin and Ross. I kinda like Ross better.”

  Darrell hid the passport in his jeans. “We shall never speak of this again.”

  “Kids, be alert,” Sara said.

  Roald cautiously gathered them, and they hurried through the terminal and out onto the streets. Amid the bright glow and warmth of the blue coast, a kind of darkness seemed to pursue them like a cold, pale shadow.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Novaya Zemlya, Kara Sea, Russia

  June 4

  Late morning

  Konradin Ivanov hoisted his binoculars, looked out across the frozen sea, and wondered if he was alive. But how would he know? Being stationed in Novaya Zemlya froze the body and deadened the soul. He could have died weeks ago and not noticed.

  Novaya Zemlya. The southernmost tip of the narrow crescent of earth was four hundred and fifty kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. Add another five hundred kilometers to get to where Konradin was now, and you were in a place that was useless, mindless, pathetically isolated, and stupid.

  The Kara Sea surrounding it lay unthawed. It had been a bitterly cold spring, so even in June the sea around it was still a continent of ice. And yet he had received the sudden command: Do it now.

  Annoying. But profitable. He and his men stood to make hundreds of thousands of rubles each for finding what the Order wanted. Luckily, he and Vitaly had anticipated something of the sort and arranged for an old ice drill to be delivered from Murmansk last week. It stood behind him now, groaning like a dying monster, waiting to chew up the frozen sea.

  Wearing a thick polar anorak with a fur-lined hood, Konradin braced himself out of the wind, against a hut made of corrugated steel panels. Through his large pair of binoculars he scanned and scanned.

  “Anything?” It was Vitaly Dershenko, like him a good soldier, also huddling pathetically from the cold, also dreaming of a big payday.

  “Soon, Vitaly.” Konradin spat, and the mucus froze on its way down and shattered into crystals—clink—on the ground at his feet. Just like in the tales of the Gulag. Not much had changed in seventy-five years.

  “When we find it, are you going out to it?” Vitaly asked.

  “I have to. The little German, von Braun, sent the order to me personally.”

  “Poor Konradin.”

  “And poor Vitaly. You’re coming with me.”

&nb
sp; It was Vitaly’s turn to spit. Clink.

  The whole thing made him ill. Poison lurked beneath that frozen sea out there. The great Soviet nuclear test site that had become the great Soviet nuclear dumping ground.

  “There?” said Vitaly, pointing his padded leather mitten due east.

  Konradin adjusted the distance meter on his binoculars, and now, yes, he could see it. A faint vertical rod protruding from the ice a kilometer or so from shore.

  “You always had good eyes, Vitaly.”

  Konradin turned and waved his hand. The monstrous engine behind him sent out a cough of smoke. Hiking up to the drill’s cabin, he showed the driver where to go, gave him coordinates. Vitaly joined him in the cabin. The ground shook as the drill crawled like an enormous insect down to the shore, a half-dozen men with hand picks following on snowmobiles. The caravan moved slowly over the frozen sea to the spot and stopped. Konradin climbed down from the cabin with Vitaly, pointed to the ice, and waved to the driver. The drill lowered its head. The great shaft of steel met the surface of the ice and began to grind into it.

  One hour later, the drill had struck steel. As the drill withdrew, Konradin sent a video camera down the shaft on a long wire. He turned the wire slowly, then pulled it back up. He replayed the video, pausing it fourteen seconds in.

  The camera’s screen bore the designation he had been told to look for.

  Konradin Ivanov nudged his comrade. “Think about how you’ll spend your money, Vitaly. Think about your family. Your children. Your new car.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Nice, France

  June 4

  Morning

  Moments after the Kaplans left the rail terminal and entered the city streets of Nice, Wade heard his father’s phone ring. He hoped it was Terence. He didn’t want to spend any more time not knowing where he was going.

  It was Terence.

  “Dad, put it on speaker,” he said.

  “Hello, all,” said Terence. “I heard about the fancy footwork at the station. Good job. Go directly to number five Rue de la Préfecture. It overlooks the Place du Palais. I have two floors there; you’ll be on the top one. The bookseller’s been charged on suspicion of murder, which may eventually be reduced to manslaughter or self-defense. He’s been taken to the Palais de Justice, the police headquarters in Nice’s old quarter, which is conveniently across the square from the apartment. I like it because I frequently need to talk with the police for my novels. Your cover stands right now, although, as always, that will change.”