The Bonaparte Secret

CHAPTER ONE

Petionville, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

November of last year

Chin Diem, undersecretary for foreign relations of the People’s Republic of China, admired the view. Spread out below the mansion’s picture window was the city, its lights cradled below the mountain like a handful of jewels. Fortunately, far below. Far enough that the stench of open sewers, uncollected garbage and burning charcoal that had assaulted his nose upon his arrival could not reach him. Neither could the flies and mosquitoes that seemed the country’s most populous fauna. Up here the residences were multimillion-dollar mansions on multiacre lots. Their owners shopped regularly in Paris or Milan. The residents of Petionville owned over 90 percent of what little wealth Haiti possessed. And that had come largely from offshore, untraceable investments originally funded mostly from foreign aid, money that had seen the beginnings of schools, the foundations of hospitals, projects never finished as funding trickled into well-connected pockets.

There was no din of hucksters up here, selling everything from carved figures with grotesquely enlarged penises to fly-ridden food to black market-discounted gourdes, the national currency, which proclaimed itself to equal twenty-five cents American but was actually without value outside the country.

The night and distance also blotted out the movement. Port-au-Prince was a city in constant action. No Haitian, from naked children to shirtless men to skirt-wearing women, young or old, was ever still. Not unless they were squatting beside the ubiquitous charcoal fires on which they prepared every meal on the filthy, noisy streets in front of rickety shacks or apartments.

Or, perhaps, were dead.

But Chin Diem had not come to this diminutive country for socioeconomic observations. His government jet had intentionally arrived after dark, when the prying eyes of what few foreign news correspondents remained in this poverty-ridden corner of the Caribbean would be unable to see who was disembarking. A Mercedes with darkly tinted windows had met him on the tarmac and he had been whisked here rather than to the alabaster capitol building in downtown Port-au-Prince. Had anyone been curious enough to check the aircraft’s number against flight plans, a process made ridiculously easy by the Internet, they would have ascertained the aircraft, registered to a Swiss company, had departed Geneva, its previous stop.

Nothing more.

Secrecy was imperative if his visit to this humid, stinking place was to be successful. Secrecy and a great deal of diplomacy, for he was dealing with a madman, a leader of a country, every bit as volatile, egotistic and unpredictable as that lunatic China could barely control in North Korea. Fortunately, though, Tashmal duPaar, another in the dreary and endless procession of Haiti’s “presidents for life,” lacked power outside his tropical domain. He had but a small army and no nuclear weapons. In short, he lacked what Diem was prepared to provide.

It was not particularly remarkable that duPaar had managed to seize power from the duly elected president. He had been the senior officer of the country’s military. As such, he simply marched a dozen men armed with outdated but deadly U.S. Army-surplus rifles into the capitol building and dismissed the president, his cabinet and the sitting parliament. It had been an all-too-familiar move in Haiti and one of which the rest of the world, particularly America, had grown weary. Demands that the United Nations peacekeeping force withdraw were complied with in an eager expeditiousness that bespoke the futility with which the international community viewed the country. A condemning resolution ricocheted around the halls of the UN, the world’s most useless debating society. The former Haitian ambassador to the United States, along with his UN counterpart, had sought sanctuary rather than return home, and the matter had died a short and unproductive death. Countries that exported little other than their own citizens tended to attract little attention. As for the people of Haiti, they were far more concerned about the next meal than the next politician to occupy this sumptuous home above Port-au-Prince.

Diem’s thoughts scattered as an Uzi-carrying bodyguard entered the room, followed by a small black man in a uniform literally sagging with the weight of medals-duPaar.

Diem turned from the window and bowed deeply. “Mr. President.”

The president for life acknowledged him with a wave of the hand before sliding behind a mammoth, gilt-edged Boulle partners desk that made him look even smaller. “Good evening, Mr. Secretary.”

Since duPaar spoke no Chinese and the Chinese diplomat certainly knew no Creole, the blend of mangled French and West African dialects that is the language of Haiti, the men would converse in English.

Diem nodded toward the armed guard. “My understanding was that this meeting would include only us.”

DuPaar shrugged. “My enemies will do anything to get at me, even a suicidal attempt. The man is deaf. He will hear nothing to repeat.”

Chin Diem refrained from pointing out that even his casual appraisal of the presidential palace on arrival had revealed security befitting the leader of a country under siege. Nothing less than an armored or airborne division could penetrate the walls, gun emplacements and security cameras he had seen. He assumed there was a lot he had not seen, too. Instead, he indicated a French wing chair, one of a pair upholstered in blue silk that was showing both stains and its age. He raised an eyebrow in a question.

“Yes, yes, of course. Please sit.”

Chin did so, reaching into a pocket inside his black silk suit.

Instantly, he was looking down the muzzle of the guard’s Uzi. Gingerly, he removed his hand, holding a pack of American Marlboros. “May I?”

In reply, duPaar opened a desk drawer and produced an ashtray with the words Fontainebleau Hotel Miami Beach on two sides. He smiled slyly as he slid it across the desk’s inlay top. “As you can see, I, like you, have traveled widely.”

Once again, Diem said nothing as he busied himself with lighting a cigarette.

Then, nodding to a painting behind duPaar’s head, he asked, “That is a Bazile, is it not?”

For the first time the president for life smiled, showing teeth the color of old ivory. “You know Bazile?”

“I know of several of your country’s painters. Bazile reveals himself by his use of several shades of green, more green than all other colors combined.”

DuPaar produced a cigar from somewhere, bit off the end and spit out the tip. He spoke between puffs as he applied a wooden match. “The green mirrors the lushness of the country.”

Not if the pictures of Port-au-Prince’s neighboring countryside Chin had seen were accurate. The surrounding mountains were eroded dirt, the trees having been long ago stripped away to make charcoal. “I see.”

DuPaar leaned back in his chair, his feet on the desk. Chin noticed his short legs barely reached. “Well? You did not come this distance to speak of artists.”

Chin’s inhale nearly turned into a choke on the smoke of his cigarette. Most diplomatic conversations started with a compliment to the host or his country, meandered through the participants’ families and their comparative health, took a leisurely stroll along a simple outline of the problem to be addressed, all before the business at hand was even mentioned.

DuPaar’s feet hit the floor as he snapped forward. “I am a busy man, Mr. Secretary. Please come to the point.”

Chin Diem could not remember being addressed in such a manner, but he swallowed his indignation. His mission was to come away with what he wanted, not put this pennyante tyrant in his place.

“My country has long wished to expand its business interests to this hemisphere. We would like to begin in Haiti…”

DuPaar was leaning forward, feet firmly planted on the floor, his hands clasped on the desktop. He spoke around the cigar clamped between his teeth. “You have already begun. The company that operates the Panama Canal is owned by your government. Specifically, your army.”

The man might be crazy but he was no fool.

“True,” Chin conceded, “but the Canal Zone is quite small. Our international competitors, the Russians, for example, already are forming alliances with Venezuela, Nicaragua, even preparing to return to Cuba.”

“Countries where the United States is disliked by those in power. Chavez in Venezuela, for instance, would do business with the devil to stick his thumb in the Americans’ eyes.”

Chin shifted in his chair. “My country is more interested in economic expansion than sticking fingers in eyes. I am authorized to propose opening manufacturing plants in your country.”

“Manufacturing what?”

“Clothes, textiles, light manufacturing to begin with.”

He definitely had duPaar’s attention. “And then?”

“And then we will see.”

DuPaar made a steeple of his fingers and rested his chin on it. “And what would I get?”

“Get?” Chin pretended to be puzzled, knowing full well what the president for life meant. “You would have employment for a number of your people, money they lack today.”

DuPaar made a guttural sound, a sound of dismissal. “Do not play me for an idiot, Mr. Secretary. You know precisely what I mean.”

Chin took the opportunity to stub out his cigarette. “Well, for starters, as our American friends would say, I would anticipate five or six thousand Chinese soldiers would be stationed here to protect my country’s investment, prevent any further, er, abrupt changes in government.”

DuPaar shook his head. “The Americans would never allow Chinese soldiers on their doorstep.”

Chin smiled. “The Monroe Doctrine, the policy that the United States would tolerate no country out of this hemisphere to meddle in the affairs of a country in the Western Hemisphere, died in 1962 when Kennedy agreed not to invade Cuba again if the Russians would remove their missiles from the island. Their present president believes talk, not action, is the solution to all problems. In the end, the Americans will do nothing.”

DuPaar’s eyes narrowed. “These troops, who would command them?”

Now came the time for the vagueness that characterizes the accomplished diplomat.

“They would, of course, serve under their own officers. But who commands the officers…” He trolled the idea implicit in the unfinished sentence like a baited hook.

DuPaar leaned back in his chair again, puffed out his chest. “You will not be surprised to know I am well versed in military command. Not only did I serve as my country’s highest-ranking officer, I have read all the military works, the campaigns of Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Frederick the Great, Stonewall Jackson, Rommel, Patton.. .” DuPaar inhaled deeply. “There are those who say I am the embodiment of those men. I believe I am their souls reincarnated in one body.”

Either the president for life had been smoking something other than his cigar or he was farther down the road to insanity than Chin had been informed. But then, mental problems had historically been an issue here. Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier had believed the dogs and cats in the streets informed on his enemies, and acted accordingly. Crazy or not, if this fool thought the People’s Republic of China was going to trust him to command Chinese troops… Well, he was thinking just what Diem had been instructed to make him think. By the time he found out to the contrary, China would have a foothold within a few hundred miles of the American coast, a base from which its aircraft and navy could reach any place in the Caribbean, a sea that the Americans regarded as their own lake.

“Such a command would restore the glory of my country,” duPaar continued, “reminiscent of Toussaint L’Ouverture…”

“The former slave who defeated Napoleon’s brother-in-law and chased the French out of Haiti forever.” Along with a hefty helping hand from yellow fever, to which the indigenous population had some degree of immunity.

DuPaar smiled again. “You are acquainted with my country’s history. You see the similarity between me and the great Toussaint.”

More like his successor, Henri Christophe, tyrant and self-crowned emperor who ruled as Henri I. Believing he was too great a man to die a normal death, he shot himself with a silver bullet rather than be torn apart by a mob. It was he who started the practice that would ultimately make Haiti the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere: subdividing already-small parcels of arable land to distribute to his supporters. The predictable result was that few Haitians owned more than tiny plots, hardly enough to feed their families. He also bestowed empty titles, among which were the Duke of Marmalade and the Viscount of Beer.

But Diem said, “My superiors are aware of the parallel.”

Both men were silent for a moment, duPaar basking in imagined glory before he spoke. “I will agree to your proposal, but I need a sign of your country’s good faith first.”

Diem had been prepared for this. His government had authorized a bribe of up to ten million dollars to be paid into the president for life’s Swiss bank account. “And that would be?”

“I will need you to retrieve a very special object for me, one that will symbolize my might and grandeur, something that will proclaim my status to the world.”

Diem swallowed hard. He dared not think what this madman had in his twisted mind. The Holy Grail?

DuPaar was staring at him. “Did you know Haiti and the Dominican Republic were the same country in colonial days? It was known as Saint-Dominigue. It is my ambition to reunite us.”

The sudden change of subject caught the Chinese diplomat off guard. It took him a second to realize the tourist and agricultural industries of Haiti’s neighbor were worth billions of dollars, a good part of it from investors in the United States. If anything could provoke the American president into military action, this would be it.

“You have reason to believe the Dominicans wish such a reunion?”

DuPaar snorted. “When they see Haiti’s might, when they see the great symbol of military prowess you are going to bring me, they will have no choice.”

Military prowess. Diem relaxed a little. That would seem to exclude the Holy Grail. “What is this object you desire?”

DuPaar told him.

Shock stripped away the diplomat’s facade of calm. “But no one knows where such a thing is to be found. Or even if it still exists!”

DuPaar stood, took two steps toward the door through which he had entered and stopped. “When you have it, come back and we will discuss the terms under which you may build your factories and where you may construct such military facilities as you desire.”

He left the room without another word. The guard gave Diem a blank stare and followed. The Chinese diplomat sat for a full minute, sorting through the most unusual negotiations in which he had ever participated before getting up and heading for the waiting Mercedes.

Venice

18:20, February, the present year

Lang Reilly was not fond of Venice. The city was like a movie star long past her prime. Faded stucco peeled from stone walls like a woman unable to replace her makeup. The acqua alta, high water from the Adriatic, relentlessly flooded most of the city in its persistent effort to reclaim what had been taken from the sea.

It was a city of tourists, twenty-one million in 2007, as opposed to only sixty thousand residents remaining of the one hundred twenty thousand of twenty years ago. Many of the historic palazzos were now hotels, an increase in visitor accommodations of 600 percent in the last ten years. Claustrophobic byways, more alleys than streets, were far too tight for conventional vehicular traffic even if the city allowed it. They were so narrow they remained in shadow even during the day, perfect places for muggers or worse. Indeed, the city boasted a Street of the Assassins, reflecting a cottage industry of the city’s past. Many of the street signs, where there were any, were in the Venetian dialect, rendering a map useless. The numerous canals caused perpetual dampness and musty smells, adding to the reasons he and Gurt had chosen a hotel on the powdery sands of the Lido, a strip of beach-front a five-minute boat ride across the lagoon that it separated from the Gulf of Venice.

The hotel’s boat, resembling a perfectly restored Chris-Craft from the 1950s, complete with teak decking, wallowed in its own wake as the driver reversed, then cut the twin engines a few feet from what would have been steps up to the Molo San Marco had they not been under water. As it was, the craft’s passengers had to balance their way on a makeshift gangplank.

From dockside, Lang could see the winter rain was adding to the flooding of the Piazza San Marco, already several inches under water from the seasonal high tides. A clumsily raised platform, specially erected for Carnevale to host musicians, acrobats and other entertainers, was draped with a sagging banner proclaiming Coca-Cola the “cocktail ufficiale di Carnevale.” The banner across the Campanile also demonstrated commercialism was a prime theme of the festivities by advertising a popular Scotch whiskey. A network of raised boards gave access to the glass shops and restaurants lining the square. The emptiness of the tables and chairs outside the latter added a deserted moroseness where laughter and music belonged.

The somberness seemed to have spread even to the square’s famous pigeons, whom tourists delighted in feeding. Instead of gathering around and on anyone crossing the square, their mournful cooing from under the eaves of buildings only added to the gloomy scene.

The weather had done little to dampen the early-evening enthusiasm of the revelers of Venice’s famous twelve-day Carnevale, however. Elaborate costumes were everywhere, most rented with deposits in excess of ten thousand euro in case of a drunken dip in a canal or other disaster. Partygoers flocked through and across the square. All seemed oblivious to the drizzle that, under the streetlights, wrapped the city in a glowing gauze of moisture. The impression was of an anthill just kicked over, its inhabitants scurrying in all directions to balls where the admission price could exceed eight hundred euro. Lang wondered if the celebrants were aware that the hook-nosed masks so popular here mimicked the masks worn centuries ago by those charged with burying those dead of the plague.

“You do not seem happy.” Gurt, in the costume of a seventeenth-century lady, was walking beside him as they dodged a puddle and turned right.

They were following what resembled a fretwork of loggias and arcades below a pink Veronese marble building of vaguely Gothic style.

“I’m smiling aren’t I?”

“Your smile is painted on your face along with the red rubber nose.”

“The clown outfit was your idea.”

Before the conversation could continue, they arrived at the back of a line of elegantly costumed men and women closely huddled under an awning, which ended at a pair of massive wooden doors, the Porta della Carta, the original main entrance to the Palazzo Ducale, the Doge’s Palace.

“You did remember the tickets?” Gurt asked.

Lang fumbled in a pocket of his piebald outfit. “If the rain hasn’t melted them.”

“I would hate to have come this distance and not get in.”

“For what the foundation contributes to Save Venice every year, we could buy the place.”

Only a slight exaggeration. The international charity, Save Venice, Inc., contributed millions each year to preserve and protect the city and its art and architectural treasures from being reclaimed by the Adriatic. The Italian government had spent even more on plans for a tidal gate, which had become a political football that no one thought would ever see more than lip service, inflated contracts and political patronage. In return for its efforts, the charity was permitted to hold an annual masquerade ball in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, the huge third-floor council room from which the independent city-state had managed an empire that embraced northeastern Italy, the Ionian Islands and a good part of the Adriatic’s east coast.

Although not a fan of Venice, Lang realized its historical value. As CEO of the Janet and Jeff Holt Foundation, he honored his sister’s memory with generosity to her favorite city. She and her adopted son, Lang’s best ten-year-old pal, had died several years ago in a fire caused by one of the world’s wealthiest and least known organizations. It was Lang’s threat of exposure that had forced the very same group to fund the foundation that bore his sister’s name.

He frowned, wishing it were Janet, rather than he, who had been coerced into standing in the cold dampness, waiting to arrive at a ball he didn’t really want to attend. The fact he had only himself to blame did little to improve his mood. Like an idiot, he had mentioned the invitation to Gurt, who had made it quite clear she was going with or without him.

Inside, a canopy protected partygoers as they crossed a small piazza and climbed the Giants’ Staircase, carved from marble in the fifteenth century and crowned with statues of Mars and Neptune, symbolic of the city’s power on land and sea. At the top, an usher clad in seventeenth-century knee britches, complete with shoes with shiny silver buckles, directed them toward the sound of music. To Lang, it sounded like a replay of, perhaps, “String of Pearls” or “Pennsylvania 6 5000.” It was certain the band was unaccustomed to the swing music of the thirties and forties.

Gurt took his arm. “It is Glenn Miller, no?”

“About the right band for this group,” Lang muttered, an allusion to the fact the foundation’s membership was largely elderly. Young people had better things to spend money on.

“You grousing again, Reilly?”

Lang turned to see a white-haired, elfin man attired in hip-high leather boots, balloon sleeves and a cap with a feather. A sword hung at his side. Gorin, Gowen, something like that. The man spoke with the genteel twang of the American Northeast. He came from a family of such wealth that no one was quite sure where it all had come from to begin with. He had dabbled in politics, actually getting appointed to some cabinet post Lang had forgotten along with whoever had appointed him. Lang had served on the board of several charitable organizations with him.

What the hell is his name?

More interesting was the woman whose hand he held. She was young enough to be, but certainly was not, the man’s granddaughter. Lang suspected the diamond necklace draped across inviting decolletage was not costume jewelry, either.

Gowen/Gorin turned to Gurt and actually gave a bow. “Since this lout isn’t going to do it, let me introduce myself. I am Andrew Gower.” He indicated his companion. “And this lovely lady is Angelia Sprayberry. You must be the current Mrs. Lang Reilly.”

Gurt rolled eyes at Lang before returning the bow with a curtsy. “Gurt Fuchs, the last Mrs. Lang Reilly. It does me glad to meet you.”

Gower gave her a knowing look. “The modern woman: keeps her own persona as well as her name. Good for you.” He turned back to Lang. “Don’t you find it exciting to be in the very city where Marco Polo began his extraordinary journey?”

Lang glanced out the window, noting the drizzle had turned to full-fledged rain. “I can understand why he left.”

Unfazed, Gower continued. “And in the very building where the great lover Casanova was imprisoned?”

“Lucky him; he escaped.”

Gower had to reach up to give Lang’s back a pat as he brayed a laugh. “Always the comedian! Now where are you two staying? Angelia and I are at the Gritti Palace on the Grand Canal.”

“We’re at the Motel Six on the beach.”

A flicker of a smile came and went, a man unsure whether or not he was the butt of the joke. He forced a chuckle, dropping Angelia’s hand long enough to rub his own hands together. Lang remembered he did that a lot, one hand rubbing the other as though washing them.

“Well, perhaps we can do lunch at Harry’s.”

Harry’s American Bar, located nearby, past the southwestern corner of the Piazza San Marco. The owners were named Giuseppe or Antonio or anything but Harry, the only Americans to be seen there being those willing to pay an exorbitant price for a very good lunch of typical Venetian fare. And the place was a restaurant, not a bar, though it boasted two elegant wooden bars behind which were possibly the only bartenders in Italy who knew that a proper martini contained more gin than vermouth. Make that dry vermouth.

“C’mon, Drew. I want to dance,” Angelia whined.

Gower smiled apologetically, showing teeth several generations younger than Lang guessed he was. “Duty calls.” He took a step toward the music and stopped. “By the way, you know Metaccelli died?”

The longtime Venetian contact for Save Venice, Inc.

“So I heard.”

“It’s not well-known, but he was very friendly with the current pope. Old pals.”

Reilly waited expectantly. When nothing further was forthcoming, he asked, “And?”

“The patriarch of Venice will say a requiem mass for his friend in Saint Mark’s tomorrow.”

“The church invited us specifically,” Angelia chimed in. “And Drew isn’t even a Catholic.”

“During Carnevale?”

Gower shrugged. “Metacelli loved Carnevale. Besides, it’s the one time of year when many of his friends from Save Venice can attend, since they’re here anyway.”

“Drew…” Angelia’s lips, Botox pouty, were frowning.

Gurt was still holding Lang’s arm. She tugged him toward the music. “Let us go while they are still playing something we can dance to, before they start that… What is it, hip-hop?”

Lang seriously doubted the band was going to play anything to this audience that Sinatra hadn’t sung, but it was a good excuse to terminate the conversation. “See you later!”

After three hours, even Gurt’s enthusiasm had waned. She let herself be led to the eastern edge of the room, where a number of white tablecloths floated like ships adrift on the dark wood of the floor. On the nearby wall, Tintoretto’s huge Paradise depicted a congregation of saints.

She fanned herself with her hand. “It is hot!”

Lang ran a hand across his forehead, surprised when it came away dry instead of wet with sweat. “Let’s take a walk outside.”

She looked apprehensively at those still dancing.

“Don’t worry,” Lang assured her. “We can come back.”

She picked up her purse, a bag the size of a small suitcase, slung it over her shoulder by its strap and followed him from the room.

Outside, the rain had stopped and a chilly breeze flitted from building to building. Careful not to step off the planks that served as the only dry paths across the Piazza San Marco, they turned right to walk north, stopping in front of a basilica bathed in light.

Its multiple domes and arches were far more Byzantine than Gothic. Not surprising, since Venice had always looked east to Constantinople rather than west to Rome for its alliances, customs and, in some respects, religion. The cardinal of Venice, for example, was referred to as the patriarch, a title usually reserved for the Eastern, or Orthodox, church.

“Look.” Gurt pointed.

At first, Lang thought she was calling his attention to the mosaic over the door. “It shows Saint Mark’s body being smuggled out of Alexandria, past Muslim guards. Two Venetians hid the relic under slices of pork.”

Gurt shook her head. “No, the door. It stands open.”

Lang had thought it was merely shadows playing tricks, but closer inspection showed the door was cracked open.

“Had no idea they left the place open at night,” Lang said. “Let’s take a look.”

The inside was lit by low-wattage bulbs. Even so, it was obvious that the ceiling and walls were covered in gold mosaics, more like the churches Lang had seen in Istanbul than those in Europe.

He was about to comment when he heard a low whine.

“What…?” Gurt whispered.

“Maybe they’re getting ready for the requiem mass tomorrow,” Lang suggested softly.

“With an electric drill?”

It was only then Lang recognized what he was hearing. He and Gurt instinctively moved closer to the wall, where the shadows were deepest. Moving from column to gilded column, they made their way toward the altar, which sat in the center of a dim spotlight, its two hundred fifty golden panels shining in spite of the low light.

At first mere shadows, forms moved back and forth under the alabaster altar canopy like ghosts. As Gurt and Lang got closer, the shapes took on distinct human shape. Both peered around a column.

“Why are they drilling?” Gurt asked just loudly enough to hear over the whine.

Lang shook his head, having no idea. “I don’t know, but the fact they they’re working at this hour tells me it’s probably not kosher.”

“And that they are not Italians.”

“And maybe we’re intruding on something we weren’t intended to see. Let’s go.”

Lang was walking backward, keeping an eye on what was going on as he moved toward the exit while feeling his way. Gurt was a few feet closer to the altar.

With the next step, something hard and cold was pressing against the back of his head, something very much like the muzzle of a gun. Freezing, he slowly raised his arms.

He almost stumbled as he was roughly shoved forward. By the time he regained his balance, he was pushed again. Whoever was behind him wanted him to head toward where the drilling was going on.

Years of Agency training kicked in. When you have no choice, cooperate, don’t give someone an excuse to kill you. But keep your eyes and mind open. Use whatever assets you have.

Like Gurt.

Instead of going directly to the source of the noise, Lang moved cautiously along the row of columns that had guided him before being taken prisoner. Even in the dim light, anyone could see his hands raised in surrender.

Including Gurt.

He was hoping that the dusky twilight, the deep shadows, had prevented his captor from seeing her, leaving her free to go for help once they passed the spot where he had last seen her.

It had never occurred to him he might need a weapon at Carnevale. He had left the Browning HP 9 mm in his bedside table back in Atlanta. Damn! How dumb could he get? Arriving by the foundation’s Gulfstream, neither he nor Gurt were subject to security screening. Either or both could have brought the firearms he wished they had. On the other hand, had the Browning been in the small of his back, he could well have gotten himself killed trying for it. But Gurt…

His stream of self-condemnation ended with the sound of a very solid thump, an expulsion of breath and the sound of metal hitting the marble floor. The gun was no longer against the back of Lang’s skull.

Spinning, he caught sight of a man trying to regain his balance as he took a second blow from Gurt’s handbag, swung on its strap like the weapon it had become. Now Gurt was between Lang and the light. He could only see her silhouette as she moved forward on her victim.

The man yelled something in a language Lang didn’t understand, but he heard Gurt clearly say, “The gun, get his gun. He dropped it.”

There was a grunt as Gurt’s adversary apparently launched a counterattack.

Had it been any other woman, or most men, Lang would have felt compelled to protect her. Instead, it was her opponent who was going to need protection, he guessed. At the top of her martial-arts class of women in the Agency, she had insisted on practicing with the men. The only problem was finding competition after breaking one man’s arm and the ribs of another.

Lang contented himself with a hands-and-knees search of the area as he heard flesh meet flesh and a very masculine yelp of pain. He found what he was looking for and came to his feet just in time to see the man make a slicing motion toward Gurt’s throat with the heel of his open right hand.

It was his final mistake. Ducking under the blow that would have seriously damaged if not crushed her larynx, she grabbed the hand, snatching downward, diverting the force of the blow and sending her assailant headfirst into a nearby pillar with a clearly audible crunch of bone versus stone. He slumped to the floor with a fluid motion that almost denied his status as a vertebrate. He didn’t move.

Lang slid back the slide on the automatic, checking with a finger to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber. “Hope you didn’t have anything breakable in your pocket-book.”

Gurt was peering into the gloom in the general direction from which the noise of the drill had ceased. “I should have thought of that.”

With the hand not holding the gun, Lang took Gurt’s. “I’d be surprised if someone didn’t hear that guy yell. Let’s get out of here before-”

A shot split the quiet, filling the basilica with sharp echoes. Marble chips from a pillar stung Lang’s face. Both he and Gurt dropped to the floor, where they merged with the inky darkness.

“You see where that came from?” Lang whispered

“No.”

Lang took a second to think. On the floor, he and Gurt could remain hidden in a darkness as deep as Jonah must have experienced. They could move on their bellies commando-style but to get out of the church they would have to navigate a puddle of light just where narthex met nave. He had little doubt whoever had been drilling would come looking for the man lying beside the column and then for whoever had left him there. There was equal certainty that that person would also be armed.

“Give me your purse,” he whispered.

“Now is not the time to be checking for damage.”

He told her what he wanted.

“On the count: one, two, three…”

He was never quite sure what object she had removed from her purse and looped overhand in the general direction of the altar. Whatever it was, it smashed against something with a gratifying clatter.

The response was a second shot, a noise that again sent sound caroming from wall to wall. But there was also a muzzle flash, a pinprick of light in the gloom.

Lang was on his knees before the echoes stopped. He fired three quick rounds at the place he had marked as the source of the shot and violently rolled to his left. The reply was a scream and more shots that filled the air with malignantly humming fragments of stone. Lang noted there were at least two shooters.

“They’ll spread out and try and find us,” he said. “I’ll give you cover. Run for it.”

“And you?”

“I’ll think of something. Right now, you best get moving or our son will be an orphan.”

She needed no further incentive.

Lang spread three rapid shots toward the same spot where he had fired previously. Before the second, Gurt was up and dashing for the exit. She drew two shots which, as far as Lang could tell, damaged only the church’s interior.

Moving quickly before his opponents could fire at the source of his volley, Lang was at the edge of the lighted place at the entrance. He heard a footstep behind him and to his right, another from his left. However many of them there were, he could not be sure, but the fact they had distributed their forces was bad news. It meant they were probably professionals, not some random thieves using the distraction of Carnevale to loot the church.

Professional or not, Lang was going to draw fire the instant he crossed that lighted spot. Either that or stay here, hoping Gurt could bring help before they found him.

Then the lights went on.

Not brilliant illumination, but bright enough in contrast to the murk in which he had been. It was also enough to momentarily blind him.

Instantly, he understood.

That was the purpose! Gurt had somehow found a light switch and blinded whoever had been shooting at them.

He leaped across the space between himself and the narthex like a running back stretching into the end zone.

The impact with the floor knocked the breath from his lungs as two bullets ricocheted from the place he had been a split second before.

Gurt tugged him to his knees. “Hurry! They may be right behind us!”

He didn’t need the encouragement. Staggering to his feet, he stumbled the few feet to the door out onto the lighted piazza, just behind Gurt. Once outside, they both flattened themselves against the basilica’s facade rather than present a target to whoever might choose to fire from the church’s door.

After two or three minutes, Lang asked. “Guess our friends aren’t willing to step out into the light. Want to go back to the dance?”

Gurt pointed. “You will go nowhere with that in your hand.”

Lang had forgotten he still held the gun. He looked at it for the first time he could actually see. “Tokarev TT30. First time I’ve seen one of those in a long time.”

Gurt snorted. “Seven-point-six-two millimeter with an eight-round box clip. Based on the Colt. 45. Used to be the standard Russian sidearm.”

Agency training included a working knowledge of small arms-recognizing them and using them.

“Underpowered piece of crap, if memory serves. But reliable in the worst of conditions.” Lang was examining the weapon more closely. “But this one isn’t Russian.”

He held it up for her inspection.

She pushed it down out of sight. “If someone sees you waving a pistol, the police will not care whether it is Russian or not.”

Lang took a brief glance around the square, confirming its only occupants were a group of very drunk couples staggering at the far end of the Procuratie Nuove toward the long-closed Museo Correr, too far away for them to notice what he might have in his hand.

“Not only not Russian, it’s Chinese. I can see the characters on the barrel.”

“During the Cold War, the Chinese manufactured a number of Russian small arms for their own army, the AK-47 for example.”

Lang held the weapon flat against his leg, invisible to any passerby. “But why would anybody use a gun that dated? I mean…”

“You wish to go back inside and inquire?”

“Not that curious.”

She took his hand. “I have had excitement sufficient for the evening.” She looked at him under half-lidded eyes, an expression he found sexy if not provocative. “Come, let us take the boat back to our hotel and I will provide even more.”

“That’s an offer I can’t refuse.” His hand went to his face. “My nose!”

Gurt looked at him inquisitively. “Your nose? It does not seem to be hurt.”

Lang’s eyes were searching the paving around him. “My clown’s nose. It must have come loose when I hit the floor.” He touched his bare head. “And my clown’s hat, too.”

She gave him a tug toward the canal and, hopefully, the old Chris-Craft. “You have been clown enough for tonight. Drop the gun into the canal before you have to explain it to the police.”

Calle Fiubera 32, Venice

The next morning

Lang looked down the short, narrow street to the point it ended in a corte, or courtyard, in which a small limestone church, San Zulian, perched like a Baroque wedding cake on a platter. It was one of the few in the San Marco district Gurt had not dragged him into to see paintings and sculpture by Bellini, Giorgione, Tintoretto and a dozen or so more names he could remember no better than he could pronounce them. He offered up a brief prayer of thanksgiving as Gurt entered the shop paying no particular attention to the church.

Inside, the place had the same sweet, musty smell he recalled from two days ago, when he and Gurt arrived to be fitted for the costumes she had reserved by e-mail months before. Somehow using electronics to visit an event that had its roots in the Shrove Tuesday celebration of the republic’s 1162 victory over the patriarch of Aquileia seemed anachronistic. The older Lang got, the more that word came up.

The shopkeeper, himself in Carnevale costume, examined the set of hangers Gurt handed him, his eyes going to a ragged tear in the bodice of the copy of the seventeenth-century costume. He tsk-tsked when he noted Lang’s hat was missing. The nose Lang had had to purchase, it being not reusable “for sanitary reasons,” the first time he recalled ever hearing that phrase used in connection with anything Venetian.

Reluctantly, Lang agreed to the deduction of a hundred and fifty euros from his deposit.

“Rip-off!” Lang growled as they left. “The damn hat couldn’t have cost more than fifteen, twenty bucks and it will take less than that to sew up the tear in your costume.”

The store’s door had hardly closed behind them when the merchant began punching numbers into his cell phone as he read them from a slip of paper. “The clown costume you wanted to rent?” he asked in English. “It has been returned. Yes, just this moment…”

As Gurt and Lang crossed the Piazza San Marco, she said, “We do not have to meet the plane until this afternoon. We have time to terminate.”

As a native of Germany, Gurt’s grasp of the American idiom was less than perfect.

Lang groaned inwardly at the prospect of another church. He had viewed all of the martyred saints, ascending virgins and bleeding crucifixions he wanted.

“Time to kill.”

“How would you ‘kill’ time? It does not live.”

“We haven’t ridden the vaporetto… water bus,” Lang said, hoping to foreclose additional exposure to religious art by changing the subject. “It’s a great way to see the city.”

“Why not a gondola?”

Lang remembered the last time he had been in one of the romantic if expensive boats. He had been here with Dawn, his first wife. He had met her while still employed with the Agency, one of the few careers open to a liberal-arts graduate. He had anticipated all the excitement of a James Bond film. As is often the case, experience did not meet expectations. It wasn’t even close. Instead of the Operations Division, he had been assigned to Intelligence, where his duties consisted not of slinking about the capitals of Eastern Europe and seducing the beautiful female agents of the opposition but of reading newspapers and monitoring TV broadcasts from behind the Iron Curtain from a dingy suite of offices across the street from the Frankfurt rail station. There he had met Gurt and had had a brief affair that terminated when she was transferred to another station.

Then he had met Dawn and married her. With the collapse of the Soviet Empire, it became clear that opportunities and advancement inside the Agency would be limited. Lang resigned and went to law school while Dawn worked. After his practice of defending white-collar criminals began to flourish, he had taken his wife to Italy as a very small reward for her labors.

She had fallen in love with Venice. Where Lang saw fetid, malodorous canals, she saw romantic waterways. When Lang pointed out that the persistently higher tides had encrusted the lower parts of most buildings with a salty layer of slime, she regarded it as a sign of antiquity. She even endured, if not enjoyed, the endless hawking of the glass merchants in their efforts to persuade tourists to take a “free” trip to their factories on the island of Murano, a place from which no one returned-not until purchasing at least one set of the artfully colored Venetian glass.

Lang supposed the set of six pale blue martini stem glasses had perished along with his other possessions when his condominium had been blown up in an attempt to kill him at the beginning of what he thought of as the Coptic Affair.

Within months of their return home, Dawn had received a death sentence from her doctor. For months Lang had sat at her bedside, making plans for a return to Italy they both knew would never happen. Years after her death, he encountered Gurt again while tracking down the deadly Pegasus organization. A stop-and-go relationship became permanent with the unintended birth of their son, Manfred.

“Lang?”

Gurt’s tone made him realize he had tuned out the present.

“You do not wish a gondola ride?”

Lang nodded toward the basilica’s doors, where a small crowd had gathered. “What’s going on now?”

He changed his direction, giving Gurt little choice but to follow. She caught up with him as he spotted Gower and the heavily endowed Angelia.

Lang now could see uniformed police coming and going from the church.

“Isn’t it exciting?” Angelia cooed. “They say the priest found blood on one of the interior columns when he opened the church for early mass. Like somebody had been injured.”

“Injured?” Lang tried to seem curious. “Do they know who?”

“I don’t think so. He wasn’t hurt too badly to get away. The police think he might have been involved in a theft.”

“Oh? Of what?”

Gower interjected, “I understand some holy relic was taken from under the altar.”

That answered the question of the need to be drilling late in the night. “Saint Mark’s bones? They’re under the altar.” Lang was perplexed. “Who would want Saint Mark’s bones?”

“Saint who?” Angelia asked.

At the same time, back at the costume-rental store, things were not going so well for Pietro, the proprietor, despite the windfall of being able to pocket part of the American’s deposit.

When the man, clearly Asian, had walked in, the owner assumed he had another customer for the clown suit and another sale of the bright red rubber ball of a nose that went with it. Instead, the man had asked to see the American’s credit-card receipt, an unusual request, to say the least. When met with a polite denial, the man, the customer, had grabbed Pietro by the neck of his costume, twisting it into a choke hold.

It didn’t take the Pietro long to realize the prior customer’s privacy or identity or whatever the Asian wanted wasn’t worth his life. Besides, the customer’s name wouldn’t be on the receipt, and all but the last four digits of the card appeared as Xs. What harm could be done with that? A great deal less than Pietro faced if he didn’t give this madman what he wanted.

At the Piazza San Marco, the crowd was beginning to disperse when it became obvious that there was nothing more to be seen. Gurt and Lang said their good-byes to Gower and his lady friend.

Lang glanced at his watch, noting they still had several hours before the foundation’s Gulfstream would arrive at Marco Polo International Airport to pick them up for the trip home.

“Now what?”

“The boat from the hotel… Why do we not ask the driver to take us on a tour of the canals?”

Lang looked around at the gaudy displays of the square’s shops. “First, I need to get Manfred something. I promised him a souvenir.”

Gurt shook her head, smiling. “You have already gotten him a puppet, a model of a gondolier and a nice leather jacket he will outgrow before spring. Do you believe another toy will diminish your guilt at leaving him at home?”

She had hit the mark and Lang knew it. He had resigned himself to being childless until, like a miracle, Gurt reentered his life with a son he had not known existed.

“He’s your son, too,” Lang observed defensively.

“If you continue to smother him in gifts, he will be my spoiled son.”

It was an argument without end or rancor. Gurt certainly loved their son but she was a no-nonsense martinet. Like so many men who had a child comparatively late in life, Lang tended to give in to his son’s whims, to tolerate behavior Gurt discouraged.

Realizing the futility of the debate, Lang changed the subject. “You said something about a ride in the hotel’s boat?”

The boat driver had made this suggestion when they first arrived. The price was well below that of a gondola and the trip far more inclusive. It had seemed a good idea at the time. Within minutes, Gurt had used her cell phone to call the hotel, and the small craft was on its way. From the tour, they would return to the hotel on the Lido, collect their bags and be ferried to the airport.

Lang stood at the Molo San Marco, his back to the canal as he took in a last view of the Doge’s Palace and the facade of the basilica. A man loitering a few feet away between two columns drew his attention. Tall, definitely Asian. Lang had seen him… where?

He nudged Gurt. “Without being obvious, take a look at the guy in the tan windbreaker over there by the columns. I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

Gurt was more interested in a wedding party disembarking from a motoscafo, a smaller, sleeker and faster version of the water bus, no doubt headed for a service at the basilica. “He is perhaps Japanese. There are Japanese tourists everywhere.”

“Can’t be. He doesn’t have a camera.”

Gurt gave him another glance. The object of their attention was suddenly interested in something that required him to turn his face away. “He was shopping the windows near the place we returned our costumes.”

Now Lang remembered. He had noted at the time the single, tall man with Asian features. Most Asians in Europe either were low-level employees, kitchen helpers and the like, students or tourists. The man was too old to be a student and not with a tour group, to which the Japanese clung like life preservers. If he had a job in someone’s kitchen, why was he standing around here when the lunch trade would be in full swing shortly? Stereotypes existed because they were correct more often than not. And this particular stereotype was an aberration from the norm like a junk car parked in a ritzy neighborhood or a street beggar with an expensive wristwatch.

For the moment, Lang forgot him as the sleek little wooden speedboat from the hotel nudged its way between gondolas and other craft.

Helping Gurt and Lang aboard, the driver began, “I understand you want a canal tour, yes?”

They did.

“We start here, the Rio del Palazzo, the Canal of the Palace, which, as you can see, runs along the back, or eastern side, of the Doge’s Palace. We take this canal, join some of the smaller ones and we come out on the Grand Canal to come back here.”

Gurt’s elbow gave Lang a sharp nudge as she whispered, “Don’t look so bored! You might learn something on this tour of the canals of Venice.”

The man spoke excellent English as he continued, pointing to an enclosed bridge. “This is the Bridge of Sighs. It connected the Doge’s Palace, which was where criminal court was held, with the prison. The bridge takes its name from the sighs of prisoners as they were led to trial. Now, if you look to your left…”

Lang was more concerned about the motorboat that had entered the canal behind them, a fiberglass Italian-made Riva. The craft’s slow speed matched their own, bow level rather than raised as would be the case on open water. He could see two men on board, but the distance was too great to make out facial features.

What made him think he knew what one of them looked like?

The hotel’s boat turned left onto a canal not fifteen feet wide. Even at their slow speed, a sluggish wake washed over steps to doors less than a foot above the water. The houses themselves formed the banks of the canal. The height of the reddish ochre buildings, three to four stories, provided perpetual twilight. What Lang noticed most, though, was that this hundred-, hundred-and-a-half-yard stretch of canal was empty of any other craft.

As though his mind had been read, the roar of throttles pushed forward echoed from plaster facades more used to the songs of boatmen and the oohs and aahs of tourists.

Lang and Gurt’s guide turned to look over his shoulder. “He crazy! Not allowed to make wake here!”

Its bow pointed well above the water now, the Riva was closing the distance between them quickly.

“Never mind the wake,” Lang shouted. “Get us the hell out of here!”

“But signor…”

Lang didn’t have time for a debate. Shoving the astonished boatman aside, he leaned over the control panel and slammed both throttles forward as far as they would go. It was as if the small craft had been shoved by a giant hand. The Cris-Craft look-alike stood on its stern like a rearing horse as twin props dug into the water. A quick look behind him showed Gurt clutching the starboard gunwale for all she was worth. More gratifying, the rate at which the following craft was gaining was diminishing rapidly.

The man from the hotel wasn’t going to give up so easily. He was trying to wrestle the wheel from Lang when a staccato burst of gunfire reverberated against the surrounding buildings, and splinters of what had been the boat’s control panel whined past Lang’s face.

Terrified, the guide let go of the wheel, off balance just long enough for Lang to hit his legs with a jerk of the hip that sent him flying into the canal. Lang had a split-second view of a mouth open in a terrified scream he could not hear above the motors’ roar before the man hit the water.

Another fusillade of automatic-weapon fire stitched across the boat’s stern. Up ahead was a right-angle turn into another canal, one even more narrow. Lang took it at full speed, the boat heeled over so steeply that the left gunwale seemed to scrape the water’s surface.

Squarely in front was a gondola, black, curved bow and stern and taking up the middle of the waterway.

Gurt saw it, too, and squeezed her eyes shut, yelling, “Look out!”

Lang cut savagely to the right, missing the gondola by inches, though it did the gondolier little good. Standing on a raised platform at the stern of the flat-bottomed craft designed for shallow and placid waters, holding onto nothing but a single long oar, the wake of the speeding craft that all but swamped it rolled it with a violence that sent him into the canal also.

Dividing his time between looking ahead for more canal traffic and keeping track of the pursuing craft, Lang saw it also dodge the gondola, this time sending both of its passengers, a white-haired man and woman, splashing into the water.

So much for their romantic tour of Venice by gondola.

He sniffed the air. There was something besides that odor of a salt swamp Venice carried like a lady’s favorite perfume. He looked around for an answer. A thin white trail of smoke was streaming from the craft’s exhaust. A look at the ruins of the instrument panel told him why: there was next to no oil pressure in the starboard engine. A bullet must have severed an oil line or the crank case or pump, or any number of vital parts of an internal-combustion engine. Worse, highly flammable fuel could be leaking into the engine compartment beneath his feet, waiting for the right temperature to set it off. His options were to shut the motor down or keep pressing it to the firewall until heat and friction froze it.

Not much of a choice.

“We’re going to have to end this pretty quick!” he yelled at Gurt.

“Is OK with me,” she hollered back. “The quicker the happier.”

Lang was not sure where he was but he guessed the Grand Canal that swept through the city like an reversed S was somewhere off to his left. To seek the crowded waterway and, perhaps, the police was tempting but unrealistic. There was too much traffic, and the consequences of hitting another craft would be just as deadly as the gunfire from behind.

He was going to have to think of something else.

And fast.

Before the engine quit.

Torcello

The same time

Wan Ng had chosen this small island northeast of Venice for a number of reasons. It, not Venice, had been the leading city of the lagoon for hundreds of years. It boasted the magnificent seventh- and eighth-century Romanesque cathedral of Santa Maria dell’Assunta and had been a thriving port and commercial center. Then its canals had silted up, sending commerce to Venice. Malaria had claimed a good number of those who remained.

Few tourists took the trouble to ride the vaporetto to the stop at the other end of one of the few remaining canals from the basilica. In fact, in this, the days of Carnevale, visitors were more likely to stay in Venice itself anyway. The innkeeper of the small hotel in sight of the cathedral’s tower was as willing to accept the explanation that the four Chinese men were from a university here to study the twelfth-and thirteenth-century mosaics as he was to accept advance payment in full.

Ng couldn’t have cared less about mosaics, the cathedral or, for that matter, Venice itself. He had a job to do. He had no idea why it had been necessary to steal a box sealed under the altar of San Marco, but that is exactly what he and his men had done. Had it not been for the untimely intervention of the man in the clown costume and the woman, the theft might well have gone undetected. Now, short a man, he had been ordered to take care of both of the intruders in spite of the serious doubts he had expressed to his superiors that there had been sufficient light for the clown and his female companion to recognize any faces, let alone be aware that the thieves were Chinese. That had been the reason that the body of his former comrade had been removed from the basilica where his neck had been broken and unceremoniously dumped in a canal after making sure he had no identifying evidence on him. By the time the police got around to comparing his face to any surveillance-camera pictures that might have been taken when he presented his false American passport entering the country, Ng and the others would be long gone.

Ng was used to carrying out orders he did not understand, and these would allow him to avenge the loss of the man the woman had killed so easily. He thought about that for a moment. The woman was obviously an expert in martial arts-kung fu, judo, jujitsu, the lot. The dead man had been trained in them as all Ng’s men had, but the woman was simply faster and better. What kind of female was that?

At least he was now forewarned that the woman, if not the man also, could be dangerous.

He only hoped his remaining two men succeeded in the task of eliminating the couple before it was necessary to use the information he was seeking on the laptop in front of him. Hacking into the credit-card company’s files had been surprisingly easy. It was a wonder the identity theft of which Americans constantly complained was not even more widely spread than it was. Once into the database, it was simply a matter of viewing all charges made that morning in Venice, Italy, at a specific costume shop during the time it took the Americans to return the clown outfit and the woman’s costume.

He stopped scrolling and smiled. There was only one. Here it was now: the card belonged to Langford Reilly. Accommodatingly, the list also provided an address in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

If his men did not succeed in taking care of the pair today, Ng could look forward to a trip to the States, something he enjoyed. He had learned English, a requirement of his service, and had had ample opportunity to polish it at China’s American Academy. The institution was a requisite for his service and turned out fluent, American-idiom-speaking graduates conversant in rap music, sports teams and other singularly American institutions. He had been told he had the accent of the American Midwest.

He almost looked forward for a chance to use it again.

Venice

Reluctantly, Lang flicked his eyes at the oil-pressure gauge. It was almost at the bottom of the dial. He didn’t have a lot of time before the right engine went belly-up. He was slowly losing ground. The craft were about equally powered, but he was zigzagging erratically to throw off the aim of his adversaries, while they had the luxury of a straight path.

The small speedboat careened around the corner of another intersecting canal. This time the side of the craft scraped a set of steps with a protesting crunch of wood against stone. Without reducing speed, Lang continued the turn, completing a 180-degree sweep and almost swamping the ship. He had no sooner straightened out before his pursuers rounded the turn. He passed them before they could react.

The windshield shattered as bullets whined evilly past his head. Reflexively, he ducked, losing sight of where the boat was headed. Within the split second before he could see again, a four-story palazzo loomed above him. He just had time to spin the wheel, but it was close enough for him to see the expressions of faces pressed against a window.

A lot of people had to be looking out onto the canal, attracted by the sound of gunfire. One or more of them had called the cops, he guessed from the sound of sirens. By the time the police found the right place in this watery spiderweb of canals, they would be too late.

The starboard engine gave a cough and went silent.

Lang yelled directions at Gurt and she dove overboard. Turning the boat around again, he aimed it at the spot he guessed the Riva craft would be seconds later. Then Lang took a dive himself, beginning to swim as fast as he could the second he was in the water. His head came above the greasy green surface just in time to see the Riva veer wildly to avoid the boat Lang had just vacated. They missed the speedboat by inches, started to regain control and smashed head-on into the steps of one of the residences.

Lang ducked back underwater when he saw the collision was inevitable. Even so, the resulting explosion was clearly audible and seemed to shake the water itself.

He resurfaced to a sea of floating debris, some of it burning. There was no sign of the two men.

Ahead of him, Gurt was dragging herself onto a set of stairs that led to an old wooden door with signs of rot at the edges. He noted her purse was slung over one arm, and as she climbed out of the water, she still had her shoes on.

The latter was hardly surprising. She had just purchased the pair of Pradas before leaving home. Gurt was very fond of the brand.

Lang pulled himself up beside her. “And what did you learn on our tour of the canals of Venice?”

Later that evening, after Gurt had retired to the Gulf-stream’s small but comfortable bedroom, Lang found himself staring at the same page of the novel at which he had been looking for several minutes. Sleep aboard an aircraft, even a luxurious private one, was next to impossible for him. Gurt and others had pointed out to him that there wasn’t a lot he could do about an engine failure, fire or other disaster at thirty-five thousand feet asleep or awake, and that he had a superbly trained crew no matter whether he slept or not. It did no good. A couple of drinks and a fine wine from the galley with dinner were no help. He simply couldn’t doze off. The drone of the engines should have acted as a sedative. Instead, they were a stimulant to his nervous system.

He sighed, put the book down and looked out into the Stygian darkness of a night over the ocean. There were questions bouncing around inside his head like Ping-Pong balls, questions for which he had no answers. The Chinese weapon in the church, the obviously Asian man in the square. For reasons he would not like to try and explain, he would have given odds the men in the pursuing boat had been Asian, perhaps Chinese, too. Long ago Lang had learned to reject coincidence, an explanation used by weaker minds. He was right 90 percent of the time.

The only reason he could come up with was that the afternoon’s affair had to do with his and Gurt’s interruption of last night’s theft of Saint Mark’s relics. But why? Whoever had wanted the bones had apparently succeeded in making off with them. Perhaps the thieves feared he and Gurt could recognize them, give a description to the police, even though he would have needed a cat’s vision to see facial features in that darkly lit place. And if the theft plus the Asian man were connected, what would an Asian want with the remains of a Christian saint?

He smiled in spite of the questions he could not answer. The face of the elderly woman who had answered the persistent banging on her door to the canal was worth remembering. With typical Italian hospitality (or was it curiosity?), she had offered towels to the two wet, bedraggled people who had mysteriously appeared on her doorstep. Manners of another age prevented her from asking questions, and she had simply accepted that the fates had sent her two people very much in need of help, or at least admission to her home.

Or had it been the tradition of fregatura? There was no exact English translation for this uniquely Italian concept. Fregatura was an act somewhat less than entirely legal but short of egregious. It also had the hint of getting away with something, as their elderly hostess would be doing by not notifying the police that the people they were undoubtedly looking for were right here in her parlor.

Once toweled off, Gurt and Lang had declined her offer to send a servant for dry clothes, explaining their hotel was nearby and only a misstep along the canal had resulted in their falling in. The graciousness of a bygone era prevented the signora from inquiring about the explosion that had surely rattled the shelves of Venetian glass against one of the walls of her centuries-old home. Perhaps she had been too deaf to hear the wailing of the sirens from the police boats.

The concierge at their Lido hotel had given them an astonished expression as the two wet, rumpled guests, still trailing wet prints from soaked shoes, trudged through his lobby. Obviously, the hotel’s boat driver had not made it back there yet.

“Signor Reilly?” he had asked.

“Your boat had engine trouble,” Lang said just as the elevator doors shut. “We had to swim for it.”