The Medici Dagger

by Cameron West

  The bike hung in the air for a full five seconds before I let it fall. I snatched a look in the vibrating mirror. The two guards were jumping into a car.

  A moment later I heard theweeoosound of their siren. Shifting into third, I continued to accelerate around a corner in the winding road.

  Think, think! Direction, roads. I’m on N2. They’ll call ahead to Lugano. They’ll send guys south to box me in.

  I remembered the map I’d studied on the plane. SS340 cut east at Chiasso to Lake Como. I surveyed the terrain on my right. Chuckholey, tough going, but the highway had to be that way. It was off-road or nothing. Backing down to ninety, I pulled into the wilderness, churning up dust like a stagecoach. Dracco’s Harley was now a monster dirt bike.

  I dodged the big rocks, kicked up the little ones, and hauled ass toward a rise a half mile ahead. I no longer heard the siren, only the rumble of my engine and the ping of the stones. Felt them, too, smacking my shins.

  I slowed as I reached the top, not wanting to catch unexpected air. What I saw was a hundred yards of low-sloping grass and the SS340. Ten seconds later I landed on my new route. No cops. But no Lugano either.

  The tourists drive by Lake Como at a torturous five miles an hour. There are no back roads to take, no freeways to hop, nothing but nature, cheese shops, and oompah bands.I inched along in wrenching frustration, wholly disjointed from the festive surroundings. Boarding the train at Lugano was a tragically missed opportunity. It had certainly left the station and was streaking for the St. Roddard Pass. All around me carefree people in sporty haircuts and hiking boots admired that iridescent, deep-blue lake.

  The watery vision stilled my mind and I drifted, hooked to a line that dangled from memory’s long pole.

  I recalled my first trip through the pass, cruising south from Zurich in a VW bus. After crossing a bridge, we’d entered a tunnel. When it spit us out the other side, I’d noticed train tracks thirty feet below, running parallel to the road.

  Suddenly I was back in the jungle. Clear vision, crystalline thought. Goddamn!I know how to intercept that train!

  I cut west on the road to Gandria, then wound my way towardBellinzona, tooling as fast as the snaky road would allow. If the police were looking for me, they’d be on Highway N2. Checking my watch, I calculated when the train would reach the tunnel. Twenty minutes, tops. I cranked the throttle; my burned hand throbbed. Anger snacked on the pain.

  At Bellinzona I got back on the main road at last. Passing everyone as if they were still-lifes, I watched for cops and prayed for train.

  I blasted through Giornico. The mountain loomed ahead in the distance—a chunk of rock with two gaping holes.

  As I careered around a hairpin turn, my foot peg scraped along the coarse pavement. I was losing the split-second battle for control when I heard the screaming whistle.

  With all my strength, I forced the bike up and onto the straightaway. And there it was! At the back of what looked like thirty cars, Krell’s silver Pullman glinted in the afternoon sun.

  Ginny!

  Hunching down, I gunned the Harley up the ascending parallel road as the locomotive barreled into the tunnel.

  Sirens wailed behind me.

  I’m on that train,I resolved.One take.

  Speeding past the Pullman, I saw the curtain pull back and glimpsed Krell’s bald head. The mountain towered above, its open mouth waiting to devour me.Not today. Time it . . . time it . . . Go!

  I jerked the bike hard right. The ground fell away as I launched for the rapidly disappearing train. I leaned forward, keeping my body loose, anticipating the impact.

  The rear wheel landed first, square in the middle of the car in front of Krell’s. Tromping the back brake, I laid the big bike down, taking the hit on my right hip and elbow as I slid by the air-conditioning unit, just managing to grab hold of it. The eight-hundred-pound motorcycle screeched across the roof of the car, plummeted off the side, and crashed into the brick wall at the face of the tunnel.

  Steel fingers and iron will kept me clinging to the train as it hurtled into the darkness. Wind battered me like a cat-o’-nine-tails, deafeningme to all but my inner charge, my mission. I was chin down, spread-eagled, unable to do anything until we emerged from the mile-long tunnel into the sunlight that filled the cavernous pass.

  I was about to crawl around the air conditioner toward the Pullman when five men rushed like ants out of a hole onto Krell’s front platform.

  I pulled out the Jackhammer, flattened myself against the roof, and squeezed the trigger; the force of the kickback jumped the shotgun out of my hand and off the side of the car as one of the guys exploded like a piñata.

  I drew out one of the Sigs, a weapon I knew I could count on, and let loose, directing my fire side-to-side like a lawn sprinkler, emptying the magazine. I heard screams over the sound of the thundering train, then nothing, which gave me a moment of hope, till about a hundred rounds tore through the air conditioner, ripping it to shrapnel.

  I fell away, covering my face with my arms, and slid to the side of the car, grabbing the gutter rail. Drawing the mini from my sleeve, I frantically pressed the button for full automatic as the next burst of machine-gun fire ripped the rest of the air conditioner from the roof.

  I squeezed the trigger, firing most of the clip of pellets at the two remaining men. A microsecond later, tiny explosions popped like firecrackers. I lifted my head up slowly. Carnage.

  I slipped the gun back into the armband; the heat burned my skin. Spidering over the edge of the car, I leapt down into the litter of bodies. I pulled the other Sig from its holster and burst through the door in a low crouch. No one in sight.

  “Ginneeey!” I yelled, searching the car.

  “Reb!” she screamed from the back platform.

  I sprang through the rear door, all rational thought deserting me. Tecci stood behind Ginny in the corner, the Medici Dagger pressed to her throat, his Glock 17 aimed at my heart. Two feet away, Werner Krell leaned against the railing, sweat pouring down his face, eyes wild and darting. Heath wasn’t there.

  “Ace . . . you do always turn up, don’t you?” Nolo said. “Say hello to Herr Krell.”

  My chest heaved, breath rasping in my smoke-scorched throat. My eyes locked on Ginny’s. The wind blew her hair across her terrified face.

  “Ginny,” I whispered.

  Nolo nodded at my gun. “Put it down.”

  I laid it on the platform floor, my mind racing.

  “Boot it over,” Tecci ordered.

  I kicked it into the ravenous gorge. “Where’s Heath?”

  “He took a little stroll,” Tecci smirked.“Missed all the fireworks.”

  Krell clasped his hands together and looked up. “If there was a heaven, neglected fruit would sail skyward instead of crashing to the dirt to molder and reek. So you see, Newton’s law of gravity is really God’s precept of the plummeting souls of fruit and men. And my bombs . . . my bombs, which will carry their souls in their skin. Each one consecrated by the blood of the Medici Dagger.” He flashed a smile that oozed madness.

  I felt boundless rage. “You’re fucking insane,” I seethed.

  “The time for talk is over, boys,” Tecci said.

  Krell cackled,“Ah, time. Time, time, time. What time is it, anyway?”

  “It’s later than you think,” Nolo said.

  The smile dropped off Krell’s smooth face.“No it isn’t,” he snapped. “It’s exactly when I think! You told me,‘Time is a desert.’ Well, this ismytime. I am God’s camel, and your only purpose is to fill my hump. And now I have the Dagger and the desert is mine! So, do what you have to do,” he ordered, waving his hand at me. “I’ve got history to make.”

  My skin prickled.

  “Werner,” Nolo said quietly, almost reverently. “Welcome to history.”

  He turned the gun on Krell, shooting him between the eyes. The blast sent him over the railing into a tumbling free fall. Ginny screamed as he pointed the smoking gun back
at me.

  “I’ll miss him quoting me,” he said.

  “You just killed Werner Krell,” I said, stalling. “When did you decide to do that? Really, I’m interested.”

  Nothing.

  I tried again. “You never cared about the alloy, did you? About Krell’s plans or Soon Ta Kee. What were you and Heath up to?”

  “That depends on when, Flame Boy,” he said.

  “You blackmailed Heath’s father, way back in merry old England,” I said, “didn’t you?”

  He looked surprised for a second, then amused.

  “You told him about you and Jack, and threatened to spread the news.”

  Nolo laughed again. “How’d you figure that out? Jack never did.”

  “And you didn’t like it much when Krell and Ta Kee paired up, either.”

  “Flame Boy, do I look like someone who socializes with people who take rickshaw rides? When Werner connected with Ta Kee, in my mind, his day was done. You see I’m really quite a free spirit. Freedom—that’s what satiates my appetite. Werner, he was way different. His gut was full from grazing in his personal pasture of horrors for so long. Hey, that’s a good line; I should write that down. So, satellites, bombs, who cares? I get to enjoy the smell of fresh air again.”

  “You mean flesh air,” I said, anger spiking. “Burning flesh.”

  “It’s true. I do like that, too. The smell of blood isn’t bad either, or the scent of a man . . . or a wet woman. Oops,” he said, pressing the blade against Ginny’s throat. “She’s starting to tremble.”

  “She’s amajorpain in the ass, isn’t she?” I blurted.

  Ginny gaped at me.

  “You mean pain in the neck,” Nolo chuckled. “Literally. You know she tried to stab me in the throat with her little pig here?” He pointed to Ginny’s stick pin woven into his lapel.“It was right after I told her about signing you. Personally, I think she has a crush on you. Tell me it’s true, honey.” Nolo sang, “You’ve got a crush on Ace . . . sweetie piiiie . . .”

  Tears trailed down Ginny’s cheeks.

  “She’s a smart one, though,” I said, barely containing.

  “Oh yeah, a real Poindexter. You should have seen her figuring out da Vinci’s poetry. It was beautiful, too, those Circles of Truth. Shewanted this knife badly. And now,” he said, laying the flat of the blade against Ginny’s jaw, “she’s gonna get it.”

  “No,” Ginny pleaded, squirming against his arm. “Reb, please . . .”

  “What, honey?” Tecci laughed. “You think Flame Boy’s going to save you? Wrong. You’re next. I’m the carver, babe, and you’re going to do the sleeping. Down in the mighty whorl.”

  Ginny stared at me wide-eyed, locked in horror’s grip. The vision of her, the wind, and the rhythm of the clacking wheels carried me exactly to where I needed to be—the jungle.

  “Let me go first, Tecci,” I said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I’m supposed to.”

  “Hah!” he laughed, but I could tell he was intrigued.

  “It’s meant to be this way.” My gaze burned into his.“This is history— the end of five hundred years of it. Leonardo . . . my parents . . . me. That’s the order. This is your poem and so far you’ve written it perfectly—like the N you carved in my neck. Finish it right. You can call it . . .‘Destiny Wept.’ ”

  I could feel Ginny’s desperation, but kept my eyes on Tecci as the train rolled along the track, high above the waiting river and crushing rocks.

  “You’re right, Ace. It is my poem. Up and over.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned to Ginny.“I’m so sorry, Antonia.”

  I leapt onto the gleaming brass railing and pushed off right for Tecci, launching a kick at his stunned face. Ginny ducked. Nolo blocked with the Dagger, slicing right through my boot into the arch of my foot. I grabbed his gun hand. He growled, thrusting the Dagger at me. I caught that wrist and twisted; the knife skittered across the floor.

  Tecci head-butted me and squeezed off a round; somewhere behind me, Ginny screamed. Tugging his hand free of my grip, Tecci smashed me in the side of the face with the gun. I spun around and threw a back fist. His head smacked into the wall of the Pullman. Blood spurted.

  I punched him in the face; the sound of teeth cracking punctuated his scream. Sagging to his knees, he dropped the gun. I kicked him with my bloody foot,banging his head off the car again. He slumped forward in a heap.

  At the other end of the platform, Ginny was bent over, holding the side of her thigh, blood seeping from between her fingers. I ran to her. She fell into my arms, sobbing.

  “I’ve got you,” I said softly into her hair. “You all right?”

  She pulled away from me. “No, I’m not all right!” she shouted, punching me hard in the stomach.

  I doubled over, thinking yes you are, Ginny Gianelli, yes you are. I felt her hand on my shoulder and straightened up.

  “I save you and you hit me,” I groaned. “Why do you do that?”

  She bit her lower lip in a way that made me forget my gut. I lovingly touched her cheek, and she tilted her head back as she had in Pop’s garden. Then her face went white as a cloud. “Reb!”

  Tecci stood behind me, drenched in blood, raising the Medici Dagger to strike. I tugged out the mini and fired a burst. He jerked backward, pellets exploding. I fired again, emptying the clip.

  I rushed to him, grabbing his throat, my thumb covering the head of his tattooed serpent. I wrenched the Dagger from his dangling hand and slipped it into my back pocket. Arching him over the railing, I plucked Ginny’s pig from his lapel.

  The demon’s bloody lips quivered, red rivulets accentuating his hideous face. “Destiny wept,” he gasped.

  “Not for you,” I said, and pushed him into hell.

  I watched him rapidly diminish to an undistinguishable dot as relief quenched my adrenaline thirst.

  Finally, it’s over,I thought.

  And then Jack Heath stepped onto the platform, his gun leveled at me.

  “Where is it?” he asked grimly.

  I hesitated; he aimed at Ginny.

  “No!” I shouted. “I’ll give you the goddamn Dagger!Ifyou let her go at Zurich . . . unharmed.”

  Heath turned the pistol back on me.

  “Young man, you are indeed valor itself,” he pronounced. A torturous-pause followed; then he said, “All right. Your lady fair lives.”

  I presented the Dagger to him in my open palm.

  When it was safely tucked in his suit pocket, Heath thumbed back the hammer.

  “Wait!” Ginny pleaded tearfully. “Let me kiss him goodbye. Please.”

  “Splendid idea,” Heath said. “Be my guest.”

  Ginny took my hands, moved toward me.

  “Ah, quite lovely,” Heath said.“Now I can put a single bullet through both your hearts.”

  My soul sank through the earth, out the other side, and into the blackness of savage space. I had failed. Perfectly and completely. Ginny, my diamond, would shine no more.

  I moved between her and Heath’s gun in a futile attempt to protect the girl I loved. I pulled her close, felt our thighs touch, her full breasts against me as we enfolded, aligning our pounding hearts. In Ginny’s almond eyes was a delicate and frightened invitation to forever.

  Our lips met, warm and soft, gentle and sweet as summer, moist tongues entwining, stirring something wondrous inside me for the very first time—a breathless and blessed hello as we approached the piercing sound of goodbye.

  Then beating helicopter blades rose swiftly from below as a Jet Ranger came into view, Dracco at the stick. Beckett perched next to him, a cold eye against the scope of a sniper rifle.

  “Nooooo!” Heath screamed behind me. I threw Ginny to the floor as the rifle exploded. Heath clutched his punctured chest, then collapsed beside us, faceup, eyes open in permanent surprise.

  The chopper stayed on the train’s tail as Beckett lowered his weapon and gestured animatedly for me to s
earch the dead man.

  I quickly removed the Dagger from Heath’s breast pocket. Next to it was a black computer disk. A corner had been shot off.

  I struggled to a standing position and raised my two possessions for all of heaven and earth to see.

  twenty

  Inside the Pullman, Ginny lay back on Krell’s leather couch and hiked up her skirt to inspect her wounded leg. Tecci’s bullet had routed out a nine-millimeter-wide, two-inch-long half-pipe on the side of her upper thigh. Sutures would close it, but there would always be a scar, visible to the beach crowd—and to me.I sat beside her, peeled off my neatly sliced boot. The gash on my instep would also require stitching, but I knew from experience that it and the rest of my body would heal in time.

  Leonardo’s notes lay under a crystal paperweight on Krell’s Victorian desk. Next to them sat two hand-tooled leather satchels, brimming with cash.

  Beckett and Dracco met us at the Zurich station and quietly removed us to the Hotel Arbial. A physician arrived shortly thereafter. He worked quickly, didn’t say a word, and had the best tan I’d ever seen.

  I presented the disk to Beckett. Neither of us thanked the other.

  Dracco flew Ginny and me back to California, during which time we both slept like stones with the aid of pain pills and the absence of worry. Under a hazy morning sky that held the promise of sunshine, he dropped us off at the Big Bear Airport.

  Ginny and I took a taxi to Archie’s house—ex-house really; it was mostly charcoal. The bushes were still green, though, and Greer’s briefcase was still buried under the cool dirt. I left it there again. The Jag was in the driveway, too, and fired right up, purring eagerly.

  At the Medical Center we found Archie reading. He looked at us in stunned delight and laid the book in his lap, holding his place with his finger.

  Most of his bandages were off except for a nose splint, and he looked a little puffy and purple. But his eyes were as clear as china glaze. I sat on the bed next to him. Neither of us said anything for a while.