The Medici Dagger

“I couldn’t believe it,” Beckett went on bitterly. “Our relationship had been a complete sham. All along he was planning his retribution, just waiting for the right moment. What anidiotI’d been! What a fool.”

“So what does this have to do with me?” I urged.

“There was more,” he added. “Jack has AIDS.”

“AIDS,” I repeated, picturing Heath’s gaunt face, remembering how at the Big Bear Hospital he’d said he wished he could put on some of the sheriff ’s weight. Heath was slated for death.

“And,”Beckett continued gravely, “hewasin recent contact with Nolo Tecci.”

His eyes flashed to Mobright’s and then to mine.

“I confronted him at his home.”

“And?”

Beckett grimaced. “Heath pulled a spray bottle from his desk and . . . The last words I heard from him were ‘All good things come to he who hates.’ ”

“Then what?” I asked.

“A few hours later, Tim Mobright here found me in my car. He told me I was being accused of stealing information with the intent of selling it to our adversaries.

“A copy of a file had been made from a computer which only I and my superior had access to. I remembered the day I’d left Jack alone in the room for a few minutes. I had no defense. I had to run to escape being removed by my own organization before I could vindicate myself. My one ally was Tim.”

“That’s what this is all about?” I spat. “Some fucking file?”

“Have you heard of the Passive Coherent Location system?” Beckett asked.

I remembered my first meeting with Heath in Milan. “I know what the PCL is,” I said, getting pissed. “Tell me what’s in the goddamn file!”

Beckett’s face reddened.“Anequationis in thegoddamnfile, Reb. An equation for an electronic countermeasure that would allow aircraft and weapons systems to be modified to mask the disturbance of the broadcast channels that the PCL works on. If Heath sells it to Soon Ta Kee through Werner Krell, then Ta Kee can dictate U.S.-Chinese policy.”

Shit,I thought, for the first time comprehending the magnitude of the vortex Ginny and I’d been sucked into.

Mobright groaned. Beckett knelt by his side, comforting him.

“After I went underground,” he continued, “Jack recruited Tim, who went along as my mole. Tim kept track of Heath, learned Krell had boxed himself in to an impossible delivery date with Soon Ta Kee, promising him a weapon which would be absolutely useless unless it had a housing that was ultralight and capable of withstanding the incredible temperatures generated by uncontrolled free-fall reentry through the atmosphere. Thereisno such modern material, but Krell is convinced there is; the alloy supposedly discovered five hundred years ago by—”

“Leonardo,” I finished.

“You were my means of getting to Heath before he got to Krell with the disk,” Beckett said. “It occurred to me to use you to roust him.”

“It occurred to you touseme,” I seethed. “Toroustthat lunatic.”

“This is much bigger than either of us, Reb. I had no alternative.”

“So you played Greer, the courier. A crippled old man . . .”

“We can be whoever we need to be,” Beckett said matter-of-factly.

“You were dying in a hospice. . . . The nurse said you were dead.”

Beckett stood. “I believe ‘is no longer with us’ were the words I chose for her. Look, we’re out of time,” he said, turning to Mobright. “Tim, tell me what you know.”

Mobright gathered his strength. “Reb found the Dagger in the floor,” he said, “but Tecci showed up earlier than I’d told him to and took it away, spoiling our plan that you would arrive first. He andHeath left just moments ago. They’re heading for Krell’s Pullman. They didn’t give me the details. They expected me to come with Jocko and Lon.”

“We’ve got to get to that train,” I said, panic and rage rising. “Ginny’s on that train.”

Over by the door, Cardinal Lorro and Elverson were dead. Jocko lay still, a puddle of blood spreading under him. Just then Lon moaned. I’d thought he was dead, too.

“Wha . . . ?” he mumbled.

I could feel precious seconds ticking Ginny’s life away. I picked up the drill and stepped over to the goon, knelt and squeezed the trigger. The hole cutter whirred. Holding it an inch from Lon’s shoulder, I said, “Where’s the rolling palace?”

His eyes cleared. “Fuck you, Flame Boy!”

“You held my head while Nolo burned his initial in my neck. I’m going to like this more than you.” I revved the drill.

“All right, all right,” he groaned. “It’s going to Zurich.”

“Which train?”

“IC382.”

“Where does it stop in Italy?” I moved the drill a quarter inch closer.

“Milan, I think,” he muttered, leaning as far away as he could from the bit.

“Is Krell on the train?”

“Of course.”

“Is Antonia?”

“Who?”

I clamped my fingers on Lon’s thick jaw and snapped it toward me. “Miss Venice,” I hissed. “Is she on the train?”

He nodded.

“Where are my goddamn guns, Mobright?” I demanded.

“On Krell’s plane, the one we took here. In the cabinet to the right of the sink.”

Police sirens wailed outside. “Tim . . .” Beckett said to Mobright.

“I’m all right, Inspector,” the injured man replied, aiming his weapon at Lon. “You two best be going. I’ll look after our friend.”

Beckett said to me, “Well, then, let’s go get your guns.”

“What about the pilot?”

“Don’t worry about Halliday,” he said, withdrawing a small spray bottle from his coat pocket.

“Then who’ll fly the plane?” I asked.

“We’re taking Dracco’s.”

“Dracco? You mean that was you in Milan? You gave the card to Ginny?”

“Mm-hmm. I nailed those two by the bus for you, passed the business card to her. Let’s move. Dracco’s at the airport. We’ve got to get to Krell’s train.”

There was no time to ponder. I slipped into the hall behind Beckett and followed him to Pendelton’s Benz, which he pointed out was closer than his own car.

The big-shouldered man was slumped over behind the wheel— dead. “He spotted me,” Beckett explained.

We pulled him out and rolled him behind some bushes. Beckett took the wheel and we blasted for the airport.

Heath’s pilot was in the hangar. He was surprised to see me and even more surprised to see Beckett. Two minutes after incapacitating him, I had the mini strapped to my arm and the two Sigs hanging under my jacket.

We found Dracco shaving in the bathroom in his hangar, his Gulfstream ready for travel.

“Hey, Beckett,” he chuckled. “You hooked up with Hollywood Reb. How about that?”

“We’ll be needing your services right now,” Beckett told him. “Full fare. Milan. Linate Airport is closest to the Stazione Centrale.”

“Linate it is,” Dracco answered, toweling off his rugged face. “Let’s boogie.”

Once airborne, Beckett and I stared uneasily at each other from our leather seats. Thoughts and feelings swooped down on me like Hitchcock’s birds. Four days ago I’d sat on Emily’s carpet dents, crying homeless tears to my picture of Ginevra de’ Benci. Since then I’d punched and shot and burned and bled and kissed and felt. I’d soared with Leonardo da Vinci, held his Dagger for my father, and all as the unwitting actor in Beckett’s little drama.

My hands shook; I willed them to stop, grabbing the ends of my arm-rests. Beckett turned to me, but I spoke first, my eyes burning into his.

“You played me, you prick. I told you at the hospice nobody plays me.”

He didn’t have to answer.

“The night you called me with that raspy put-on voice, you said you knew my father. You didn’t know him at all, did you?”

“I had a complete file on him.”

“Why would you have a file on my father?”

“Because of what we found on Greer’s plane.”

“What?”

“The story I told you about Greer and Tecci on the train was true, except Greer didn’t ditch his plane and his legs weren’t broken in the fall. He did try to sell Leonardo’s page and Tecci double-crossed him— slashed his arm badly and was going to throw him off the train at the St. Roddard Pass.

“Greer jumped early with the money and the notes, made his way back to his plane, and took off for America. He didn’t get far; apparently he went unconscious from loss of blood and ditched. I picked him up in no time because I was tracking him.”

“Why were you tracking Greer?”

“Because in addition to transporting Leonardo’s precious page, Greer was carrying secret documents to a contact in Greenland. You see, he was a courier for hire. He worked for everyone from theNational Gallery to the KGB. My job was to make sure those documents never reached Greenland.

“I arrived at the plane, which was still afloat and not badly damaged, and removed Greer, the documents, and the satchel. Greer was unconscious and bleeding profusely. He never would have made it to Greenland, much less Washington, D.C.

“As I got him onto the ship, he revived long enough to tell me about the Medici Dagger and pass me the page of Leonardo’s notes. My mission was, of course, secret. I couldn’t let those notes surface; I certainly couldn’t mail them to your father in an unmarked envelope. There was too much at risk. At that time a magic dagger and an eccentric munitions manufacturer didn’t seem like much of a threat. So I sank the plane and the notes went into a vault, along with the satchel of money, to be buried forever beside a thousand other extraordinary artifacts.”

I shook my throbbing head. “Buried forever . . .”

“Well, not forever,” Beckett said. “Until two weeks ago. When the second page of Leonardo’s notes surfaced in Italy, it brought back the memory of the incident with Greer, the satchel in the vault, and the page of notes. I knew the money would be an asset. I didn’t know of what use the page would be, so I researched the Medici Dagger. Of course your father’s file came up, along with the family photo that had run in the newspaper at the time of the fire. Without knowing why, really, I looked into what had become of you. When I found out you were a stuntman, well, that’s when my plan gelled.”

“I know the rest,” I murmured to the window.

“You were the perfect appendage, Reb. My God, how powerful a force vengeance is,” Beckett said to himself.

My hands were shaking again, not from the heights, but from pent-up rage, at the tragedy of greed and malice, the dominoes of death. Was it raw circumstance or preordained that my parents would die, that I would become Leonardo’s mighty traveler, that I would be sitting now, at this moment, across from the man who’d rescuedLeonardo’s first page of the Circles of Truth from being lost at sea only to imprison it in a steel vault until it was time to set it—and me—free?

I looked up to see Beckett staring at me with the same dispassionate-grin he’d had on his face when I’d left him dying in his hospice bed.

He seemed to read my thoughts. “Survival of the fittest,” he said. “I needed to survive and you were—”

“Fit,” I finished.

“Yes. I couldn’t conceive at the time just how extraordinarily fit you were. You actually found the Medici Dagger.”

“And Tecci and Krell and Heath have it.”

“For the moment.”

“And they have the woman I love.”

Silence over the whine of jet engines, wind over wings. I couldn’t believe I’d said those words. The woman Ilove. Tears fought for their freedom. Turning my face toward the window, I blinked them back, but Beckett saw.

“If anything has happened to her . . .” I managed. “If she’s in any way . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I faced him again. “There will be a reckoning. Do you hear me? If I’m not dead, there will be a reckoning.”

Beckett looked at me solemnly. “If we don’t catch them, Reb, it will be the Prince of Darkness himself who will reckon with me. So,” he said, plugging his laptop into a modem. “Let’s focus on the problem at hand.”

Beckett dialed into the Internet and connected with the Ferrovie Dello Stato, Italy’s national rail company. In short order, he had a printout of every train leaving Italy for Zurich that afternoon. He made an anonymous call to the FS office and confirmed that the IC382 was pulling a private car and that it was departing from Milan in an hour and fifteen minutes.

He told me it would take us at least an hour to get to Linate Airport, which was six kilometers from the Central Station, a dicey six kilometers; by car it could take a full half hour to reach the station once we touched down.

I asked if he could pull any strings to delay the train.

He said he couldn’t, and that even if he could, a move like that would only alert them and cause them to flee. “Where would we be then?” he added.

He was right. I had to get my brain clear. The only way to get on the train was to catch up with it. To do that, I’d need speed. Jungle speed. I saw myself streaking for the IC382. Beckett wasn’t in the picture. I felt the familiar sensation of resolve. One way or another, I was going alone.

I asked Beckett to print out a map of the roads that followed the train route. Inside a minute I was poring over them.

The train stopped in Lugano, about eighty kilometers north of Milan. After that, it was a straight shot to Zurich.

“Does Dracco have firepower?” I asked.

Beckett got up from his seat and opened a closet. “He’s fairly well stocked, actually,” he said. “Automatics, sniper rifle, an assortment of knives—”

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a large futuristic black plastic weapon.

“This,” he said, handing it to me, “is a Pancor Jackhammer. Hmm . . . loaded. It’s a gas-operated automatic shotgun that’ll turn anyone it’s pointed at into a cave painting. Useful, but a little difficult to conceal. I can’t see an application for it in this mission.”

“Hand it over.”

I leaned forward and stashed it down the back of my jacket, tucking the barrel into my pants. It fit. “How about transportation in Milan?”

“I’ll check with Dracco,” Beckett said, stepping toward the cockpit.

I closed my eyes, felt the muscles in my face tighten, the grit in my gut. Krell, Tecci, Heath—Old-Spiced and pin-striped . . . why hadn’t I spotted him as a fake? “No one is merely who they seem to be,” he’d said. “Isn’t power intoxicating?” Heath was dying to tell me it was a sham. That son of a bitch had sat next to me, told me where to breakthe Circles. He’d massaged my temples, for chrissake. Then he’d sent me to my doom, standing next to his former lover. Damn! And Greer . . . I mean Beckett . . . he’d sucked me in with a cough and a phone call, had me dancing like a marionette.

When I opened my eyes, Beckett was sitting in his seat staring at me. “When I lay in that bed playing a dying American pilot, I admit I felt a pang of regret, and I feel it again now. By nature I’m not a panderer of men. Of course, you have no reason to believe me at this point.”

It was my turn to not answer.

“I’m sorry for what happened to your throat,” he said.

I ignored the statement. “What did Dracco tell you?”

“He’s got an assortment of vehicles at his private hangar. One hell of an accommodating mercenary.”

“We’ll rent a car from him. That shouldn’t cost more than two, three grand.”

“Four. I’ll cover it, of course.”

“From Greer’s satchel, right? When I got it, it had two million in it. How much when you got it?”

Beckett crossed his legs, folded his hands. “Three.”

We touched down at Linate Airport, taxied over to Dracco’s hangar, and slowed to a stop. I deplaned first, while Beckett settled up with Dracco. Inside the hangar were a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter, a black Mercedes sedan, and a brand-new red Harley with the key in it. I looked back at the jet and saw Beckett stepping off.

I saw his jaw drop in the Harley’s rearview mirror.

nineteen

In eighteen minutes the mauling city gave way to brown earth and bulging Alps. I screamed up E35 on Dracco’s Harley, wondering what I’d face aboard the IC382. I’d killed I-don’t-know-how-many on the boat in Venice; five bought it in Little River; Lon and Jocko were out of the picture. Who was left? Tecci and Krell and Heath? Had to be more than that.

I pictured Krell from the description Lois had given me by phone the last time I’d flown into Milan: bald, not bad-looking. What was clanking through his crazy head? He had the Dagger; he had Ginny; Soon Ta Kee was on his tail; and he was cruising through the Alps in a silver Pullman?

In Krell’s eyes, everyone had to be dispensable. No way they’d hand Ginny the Dagger in Zurich and say they were sorry. I remembered the story Beckett told me about Greer. Tecci on the back platform, the high bridge, the rolling wheels, the double-cross. And then, with the force of an asteroid, a thought struck: Tecci was going to toss Ginny off the back of the Pullman at the St. Roddard Pass.

I checked my watch. It was going to be tight. They’d be pulling into the station in fifteen minutes. Followed by a ten-minute stop. That gave me twenty-five minutes. I could just make it.

I roared by the flow of traffic on the winding road, dipping into the breakdown lane, kicking up gravel and bottle caps. I was ahead of everybody, in the clear, until I tore around a corner and ran smack into the Swiss border at Chiasso.

I’d forgotten about the goddamn border! Instantly, I regretted havingthe Jackhammer. Too late. I slowed to a stop and sat up straight, arching my shoulders back to make space for the shotgun.

It was a small station: four uniformed guards, probably bored, certainly not waiting for me. I smiled at the young one who approached me and asked for my papers, hoping he’d have some sympathy for a hunchback. I wondered if I should say hello. Opting for silence, I handed him my passport.

The guard flipped it open, matching the picture with the face.

“American on a Harley,” he said with an Italian accent. “I ride a Honda. Are you renting or owning?” He eyed the bike with admiration.

I told him a friend of mine had loaned it to me.

“Really?”he said, surprised.“It looks new. Must be a very good friend.”

“Wonderful guy. Very generous,” I assured him.

“Hmm, what is in the back of your jacket?”

Time ticked irrevocably by, steel wheels rolling for Lugano.

“It’s a back support,” I said. “I have a very, very bad back.”

The guard scratched his chin with my passport. I checked his countenance from behind my shades. Curiosity or concern?

“What is this bump?” he asked, frowning. He called to a middle-aged guard who was checking a Saab. “Luigi!”

The man waved the car through to Swiss freedom. I felt envy, fear, anger. The guard walked quickly toward us, his hand moving to his holstered gun.

Ticking clock, pounding heart, sweating hands.

Luigi pointed his chin grimly at my back.Time’s up.

I squeezed the clutch, dropped it into gear, spun the throttle, and peeled out, lifting the front wheel a foot off the ground. Over the thunder of the Harley’s huge engine, I could barely hear the shouts.

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 search 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.

“That really wasn’t you in Milan, was it?” I said.

“Nope.”

“Or up in the woods?”

“Sure I was in the woods. That’s where my cabin is.”

I thought back to when we lay next to each other in the hospital the morning after the fire. I hadn’t mentioned Mendocino when I’d asked if he’d been in the woods.

“Archie,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“No one could replace my father.”

“I know that.”

“But I could use a big brother.”

His eyes got watery. Mine, too.

Ginny joined us. She thanked him for taking her in when he did, and kissed him on his ear—the only place, he said, that didn’t hurt. I kissed him on his other ear and he cracked a smile that filled the whole room. He held up the book he’d been reading:Leonardo,by Robert Payne.

I told him about the present I’d left buried for him behind the tree. He said he liked presents.

It was four in the morning when Ginny and I pulled down the driveway to the Hollister House. We rang the buzzer at the main building and a light switched on. When the door eventually opened, Pop wasstanding there in a robe and sleeping cap. He rubbed his eyes and peered at us for a moment, his perfect false teeth gleaming in the hall light.

“By jingo, it’s Holmes and Watson,” he said. “Come on in, you two.”

We hobbled in like a couple of Yodas. He sat us down on the couch and stared at us, like we’d appeared out of a lamp he’d rubbed. We stared back, vibrating from the trip, soaking in the sight of him and the sweet stillness of the night.

Pop left the room, reappearing in a couple of minutes carrying a round wooden tray which held four stoneware mugs, drifting trails of tangerine-scented tea steam. As he handed us each a cup and took one for himself, Mona stepped into the room in a long blue robe and slippers, her face wrinkled from sleep. She didn’t say a word, just sat on the edge of Pop’s chair.

Pop pushed his hat back. “So . . .”

Even though it was damn late or damn early, it was time to tell the tale. Ginny and I pieced the whole thing together, for them and for each other. Pop and Mona listened eagerly, his old head cocked to one side, her hair draping loosely down her lapels. Pop exploded more than once with “What happened next?” and “By jingo.”

Chirping birds were ushering in the dawn as we finished.

I withdrew the Medici Dagger and presented it to Pop. He cradled it in the palms of his hands, hunching over, gazing at the spectacle. He passed it to Mona, who held it up to the light, turning it till it glinted magnificently.

The four of us basked silently in the beauty of Leonardo’s creation. When Mona returned the Dagger to me, the heat from her hands lingered in the mysterious alloy.

“What are you gonna do with it, Reb?” Pop said.

I found myself enveloped in sadness—sublime sadness. It was the blanket I’d been wrapped in since that tragic night in the summer of ’80—the cover that had simultaneously provided me warmth and kept me cold as a tomb.

Ginny reached over and touched my knee, and that blanket fell away. I didn’t need it anymore.

“The Dagger belongs in the National Gallery,” I said softly, “with the Circles of Truth.”

We sat for several fragile minutes, grasping our cups, breathing in the grandeur and tragedy—the strange symmetry of circumstances that had brought us together.

I nabbed a quick look at Ginny. She caught me and hooked me, and held me in her stare. Then she took my face in her hands and kissed me deeply, shamelessly, a low feral sound emanating from her throat. It was a ground-stomping, wall-pounding, whinny-if-you-can, fog-up-every-window-in-the-world kiss.

Most of me turned to warm taffy as Pop began to whistle “A Kiss to Build a Dream On.” I opened an eye and saw that he and Mona were holding hands.

Finally, Pop announced, “Well, if you’re looking for Same Time and Next Year you can have ’em—except Same Time’s not altogether patched up yet.”

With her lips still touching mine, Ginny said breathlessly, “Next Year will be just fine.”

I gave my earlobe a little tug.

“By jingo,” Pop chortled. “I believe you’re right.”

acknowledgments

Many thanks to Laurie Fox of the Linda Chester Literary Agency for her tremendous agenting and contributions to the book. Thanks to my editor, Mitchell Ivers, and the staff at Pocket Books, and to Sally Willcox and Laurie Horowitz at Creative Artists Agency. Thanks to Linda Michaels, my foreign rights agent.

Special thanks to Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise for sharing the vision of Tom as the perfect Reb. Thanks also to Gaye Hirsch at Cruise/ Wagner Productions. Thanks to Marsha Williams for her enthusiasm and support of this book.

Thanks to Seamus Slattery, my partner, my best friend, a creative genius. It is my great fortune to be able to collaborate with you. Thanks to Jane Slattery, a true friend, and to Mike and Katie Slattery for their patience and support.

To my wonderful wife, Rikki, I thank you for the gift of your love, your fine ideas—including the name for the Circles of Truth—for your excellent editing, and for your unsurpassed culinary touch.

To my beloved son, Ki, I am delighted by your musicality with so many instruments and awed by your writing talent. I am so grateful to be able to watch you grow into such a fine human being.

Last, thank you to all my guys. Without you, I would not have survived. I especially thank Clay and Wyatt for allowing me to use some of their really cool phrases in this book.

There is comfort in the comfort room.