The Tomb of Eternity

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Eden, Hawke, Lea and Karlsson moved silently through the bustling crowd in San Marco’s Square, each armed with concealed Glocks and with the clear goal of warning Dr Dario Mazzarro about the imminent danger he faced, and how his life’s research and deciphering work could now at last be put to the test on the map — once it was recovered.

As they walked, Venice seemed to swallow them up. The Doge’s Palace rose up from the square and Hawke could see why it was one of the city’s most famous landmarks. Built over seven hundred years ago to serve as the residence of the Doge, or chief magistrate of Venice, the enormous Gothic building shone in the sun and cast its vast shadow across the busy lagoon.

Hawke and the others were anxious as they stepped out of the safety of the shaded colonnade and weaved into the relaxed crowd of tourists. Checking for threats, they walked across the famous courtyard on their way to the glistening red Verona marble of the Foscari Arch and the Giants’ Staircase.

“Is this it?” Lea asked.

Eden nodded but made no reply.

“Looks like a giant wedding cake.”

Passing the ancient Sansovino statues of Mars and Neptune, they shuffled up the steps on their way to Dr Mazzarro’s office.

Eden knocked on the door and a moment later it swung open to reveal a middle-aged man in a raggedy tweed jacket and baggy moleskin trousers. His hair was black and silver and a mess of curls not unlike a bird’s nest. A pair of tortoiseshell glasses balanced on the bridge of his prominent nose.

“Si?”

“Dottore Dario Mazzarro?”

“Si. Chi siete tutti?”

Eden spoke in rapid Italian for a few seconds and Hawke watched the Doctor’s eyebrows gradually rise higher as the explanation went on.

Mazzarro looked at the foreigners outside his door suspiciously for a few moments and then went to close the door on them, but then the sound of gunfire and desperate, terrified screams emanating from below worked the magic that Eden’s Italian had failed to do.

Eden tightened his jaw and stared down the long corridor. “The bastards must have worked out where we are!”

Without wasting a second Mazzarro stepped into the corridor and slammed the door behind him, fumbling the key in his lock.

Hawke grabbed his arm and stopped him. “These people don’t need keys to open doors, Doctor Mazzarro, and we need to get you out of here right now.”

“But how do I know you’re who you say you are — you could be criminals!”

More gunshots and screams from downstairs.

Hawke looked him in the eye. “Your choice.”

They ran downstairs away from the office, desperate to get away before any innocent people got hurt, but before they’d got a hundred yards the sound of more automatic gunfire reverberated in the ancient halls of the palace. It was followed by yet more terrified screams of innocent tourists and the sound of stampeding as they desperately rushed the fire exits to escape the terror.

“Damn it!” Eden cried as the gunshots grew closer.

“This way!” Hawke said.

They sprinted along a corridor before entering an enormous, highly decorative room with a beautiful coffered ceiling. Below, the walls were covered in grand, eighteenth century oil paintings.

“This is the Scarlet Chamber,” Mazzarro said. “We need to go through that far door. It’s the quickest way out of here — and then we must go straight to the police… But wait! We need to go back to my office — all my research notebooks are there and we cannot let these people get their hands on them.”

“Where are they in your office, exactly?” Hawke asked.

“Hidden…”

After a few seconds of wrangling, the Italian eventually gave up the location of the notes as they moved toward the door.

Outside the chamber, it sounded like someone was spraying bullets up the walls just for the hell of it. A second later a man carrying a Russian submachine gun burst through the door beneath the vast Paradise painting which stretched across the entire far wall.

They all looked to Eden for his lead. This was the first time Hawke had seen Eden under fire in the field and he wondered how he would react. He knew he had spent fifteen years in the army as an officer in the Parachute Regiment, and the Paras weren’t exactly known for running away from fights. They were universally regarded as the toughest regiment in the British Army — highly trained airborne soldiers whose only real rival were the Royal Marines Commandos themselves. They also had the proud distinction of supplying more soldiers into the SAS than any other regiment. But all that was a long time ago and Eden had lived the life of a pampered Member of Parliament for a long time now.

Maybe he’s lost it, Hawke thought, reaching for his gun.

Then Eden pulled out the Glock from the shoulder holster beneath his Savile Row suit and dropped the man in less than two seconds with the classic double-tap.

Or maybe not…

Eden holstered the weapon before the man’s body had even hit the floor and turned to Hawke and the others. “He was going to ruin this wonderful Tintoretto with that blood dreadful Vityaz,” he said coolly. “I’m just not having it.”

Mazzarro clasped his face with his hands in horror and began to mumble in Italian.

Karlsson looked from Eden to Lea and whispered: “Is this guy for real?”

“You’d better believe it, laddo.”

Karlsson shook his head. “You kill the guy because he’s an asshole, not to save the artwork…”

Eden looked him in the eye. “That artwork is over two hundred years older than your country.”

“Hey…” Karlsson replied, totally untouched by the remark, “all I can say is you’re one hell of a shot.”

“It’s time to leave, people,” Hawke said.

As he spoke, several more armed men burst into the chamber, fanned out and drew closer to them. They were led by a man who was at least seven feet tall. The pistol in his hand looked like a little toy.

“Who the hell is that?” Hawke asked as they began to retreat.

Eden watched the men as they got closer. “His name is Kosma Zhuravlev, a former KGB agent. He’s worked for Vetrov in one capacity or another for years. He’s known to break necks with his bare hands. We don’t want to talk to him today — let’s go.”

Outside, St. Mark’s Square was buzzing with tourists as they made their way hurriedly across it.

“This place is heaving!” Karlsson said.

Eden frowned as they hurried Mazzarro along through the tourists. “My concern is that innocents are going to get killed if those maniacs decide to open fire on us.”

“But what do they want with me?” Mazzarro mumbled in English. “I still don’t understand…”

“You don’t want to know,” Lea said. “But it ain’t a game of poker and a quiet glass of Amaretto.”

As she spoke, Hawke turned to see where Kosma and the others were.

“They’re keeping their distance, but still behind us,” he said.

“We’ll lose them up here,” Lea said.

“Just keep moving, everyone,” Eden said. “We need to lose them before returning to the hotel.”

Then, the unexpected happened, taking even Hawke by surprise. In a fraction of a second a man stepped out ahead of them from behind a colonnade — he was armed with a knife and looked like he knew some moves.

It was Kodiak.

He moved in a flash, grabbing hold of a young American woman who was taking a picture of the Doge’s Palace. He put the blade to her throat. A young child screamed, sending dozens of pigeons into the sunny air, and nearby tourists panicked and stumbled away from the man with the knife. A middle-aged man with an ice cream pulled out a camera phone and started to record. Lea watched Hawke move his hand slowly to his gun.

“Just let her go, Kodiak!” Eden said, quietly and in control.

Hawke cursed himself for not thinking about anyone being ahead of them, least of all this maniac.

“Give me Mazzarro or she dies,” the Russian said. A wicked smile danced on his lips. “You know I’ll do it.”

Eden stepped forward, his hand now moving inside his jacket.

“Make another move and…” He drew his finger across his throat to simulate the method of execution.

Lea watched Eden freeze in his tracks and drop the gun. Hawke followed his lead.

“Now… give me Mazzarro.”

Hawke looked at Mazzarro — he was sweating profusely and his hands were shaking. “I…I…” was all the Italian could manage as he stared at the horror right before his eyes.

“You have to go, Dario” Eden said. “I’m sorry, but we can’t let an innocent young woman die like this.”

Mazzarro saw the woman squirming in the assassin’s arms, terrified, and immediately knew his predicament. He agreed to walk over to Kodiak.

Then in a flash the Russian assassin pushed the sobbing woman away and greedily grabbed the Italian, now holding the shining blade at the Egyptologist’s throat instead.

“Now get back, or I slit his throat.”

Eden and the others took a few steps back as Kodiak moved slowly away and climbed on board a motorboat moored beside the square. A second later he was steering the boat out into the Grand Canal.

Hawke spun around to confront Kosma and the other men but there was no sign of them.

“They’ve just disappeared into thin air!” Lea said.

“We need to split up,” Eden said, thinking fast. “Lea and Brad — go after Mazzarro and do everything in your power to get that man back to us. It’s imperative Vetrov doesn’t get his hands on him because he’ll torture him for what he wants and then kill him. Hawke and I will go to Mazzarro’s office and retrieve the notes he told us about — presuming Maxim Bloody Vetrov hasn’t got there first as well. Then we’ll try and take out Kosma if we can find him.”

Hawke wasn’t too happy about watching Lea run after Kodiak and Mazzarro with Bradley Karlsson, but he knew she and Eden had a long relationship and lots of experience, so he followed her lead, stopping only to kiss her.

“Just make sure you get that bloody map back!” he said.

“That’s the plan, Joe, and just you make sure you don’t get your stupid eejit head blown off when you’re going after that Russian oaf, right?”

Hawke agreed that was a good idea and watched as she and Karlsson sprinted toward the boats moored on the side of the square. He hoped it wasn’t the last time he would see her, and turned to join Eden in their pursuit of Kosma and the notes.

The sun streamed through the blinds and cast striped shadows on the cornflower blue wall of the hotel room. Scarlet squinted in the glare as she disconnected her phone and turned to Alex and Ryan.

“Not great news, chaps.”

“Oh God,” Ryan said. “What now?”

“That was Richard. They’ve lost Mazzarro.”

“Well, where did they have him last?” Ryan said.

“Don’t be so bloody juvenile, Ryan,” Scarlet snapped. “Those Russian bastards just took him. This isn’t a game.”

“Oh, it’s not a game, eh?” he said, the anger in his voice rising. “Funny that, because I thought my girlfriend getting blown apart right before my eyes was exactly that, a fucking game.”

“Guys!” Alex pushed her wheelchair between them, sensing the rising tensions in the room. “This situation is getting out of control, right? We all feel it. We lost the map in Berlin and now we’ve lost Mazzarro, but we’re not going to let them win! You can’t let them make us turn on each other and fall apart like this. We have to stick together.”

Ryan and Scarlet stared at each other for a few seconds, and then each of them backed down.

“I need a drink,” Lexi said, opening the mini-bar.

“Sorry, Alex,” Ryan said. “It’s just that we’re really getting our arses kicked right now and we’re not used to it.”

“We’ve been here before,” Scarlet said, sighing and clearly calmer now. “Back when we were trying to stop our man Zaugg from breaking the world in two pieces with that damned trident — remember?”

Ryan nodded. “I do remember, yes — I’m not a bloody goldfish.”

“Easy there, tiger,” Scarlet said. “Remember what Alex just said about you having to stay calm.”

“Yeah, sorry… hang on — about me having to stay calm?”

Alex looked awkward again. “You two love each other really, right?”

Lexi smirked. “They do, I think.”

“Nothing can love Scarlet Sloane,” Ryan said sulkily.

“Right then,” Alex said, ignoring him and trying to diffuse the tension. “So we know we’re getting our asses kicked — fine. Let’s get our shit together and start thinking. What have we got?”

“Without Mazzarro or his notes — not much,” Ryan said, sighing.

Scarlet scowled. “Rich and Joe are going to Mazzarro’s apartment to get his notes — but there’s a chance Vetrov might have got there first — they say Kosma and his thugs slipped away while they were dealing with Kodiak.”

“We’re really going to need those notes,” Alex said, unconsciously biting her lip.

“Well, we haven’t got the sodding notes, have we?” Scarlet said, turning to Ryan. “What about all that bollocks about nectar you said you were working on earlier today, Ryan? Can’t you start there or something?”

Alex brightened up. “What nectar thing?”

Ryan almost beamed, but pulled himself back. “I was looking at the picture Lexi took of the map and it occurred to me that one of the glyphs looks similar to the Egyptian one for nectar.”

Alex smiled. “And we’re talking about the food of the gods and not the flowers, right?”

“Right, the food of the gods — the substance that is mentioned over and over again in so many ancient texts relating to their incredible longevity — isn’t restricted to the ancient Greeks, you realize.”

Scarlet frowned. “As far as this shit is concerned, boy, I know only what you tell me, and that just about drives me insane.”

“I know,” Ryan said. “Great isn’t it?”

“But he’s right,” Alex said, tying her hair back and rolling up her sleeves. “It’s true that the main sources referring to eternal life being conferred by some kind of food are mostly within the Greek myths — and this is mainly described as ambrosia, but other cultures had similar myths and legends.”

“Legends about custard…” Ryan said, his voice trailing away to a whisper as he thought about that day in Demetriou’s Athens apartment. That was the day he first noticed Sophie. It all seemed like so long ago — an age away, but it was just a few short weeks.

Alex looked at him, confused. “Huh?”

“Forget it,” he said, realizing that no one else understood the old joke.

“I don’t know anything about custard,” continued Alex, “but I know that the ancient Greeks believed ambrosia was derived from the horn of Amalthea, a goat who helped raise Zeus.”

Scarlet smirked. “Zeus was raised by a goat?”

“It’s a little more complex than that…” Alex said.

“Ah! What’s this then?” Ryan said, studying the line of hieroglyphics along the bottom of the map.

Scarlet took a step forward. “What have you found?”

“Here on the map could be a reference to Kemet.”

Scarlet sighed. “First custard and now the fucking Muppets!”

“Kemet, I said, not Kermit.”

“And that means what?” she said.

“Kemet is the ancient native word for Egypt — what the ancient Egyptians called their homeland. This reference is yet more evidence pointing to Egypt, plus there’s something else as well. If your excellent research work is right, Alex,” Ryan said, smiling at the American, “this glyph right here could be referring to the drinking of liquid gold, and if so then this here might be describing mystical white drops that can make a man god-like. Both those references are about the elixir of life.”

Scarlet shook her head. “A lot of coulds and mights in your vocabulary all of a sudden, boy.”

“Like we just explained, these glyphs are not easy to translate and we could really use those notebooks. All we have to go on at the moment is the work Alex has already done with Mazzarro himself.”

“Which is not that great, honestly. We’d only just started working together and I’m not sure he had really started trusting me yet.”

“But,” Ryan added optimistically, “if we’re even half right, it means not only does the map specifically mention the elixir of life, but that we’re sort of learning how to translate it.”

“Slow progress though…” Alex said.

“So what we really need is those sodding notes,” Scarlet said, lighting a cigarette and stepping out into the warm Italian day. “Let’s hope Joe gets hold of them.”

Hawke and Eden made their way across the square and returned to Mazzarro’s office in the Doge’s Palace. They breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the Egyptologist’s notes were exactly where he had told them they were — safely hidden behind a sliding partition in the bookcase behind his desk. There were five of them in all — just simple yellow notebooks covered in inky scrawls and strange hand-drawn hieroglyphs. Clearly Vetrov was satisfied with Mazzarro — the first prize — and had ordered his men to retreat.

“These are going to lead us to the greatest secret on earth?” Hawke said as he looked at the notebooks.

“Whatever they might look like,” Eden replied coolly, “Dario Mazzarro is the only man in the world who really understands the ciphers which will decode the glyphs on the map. If Lea and Karlsson can’t get him back, these are all we have.”

They shared a glance which was part excitement and part anxiety before pocketing the notebooks and heading back to the hotel. It was time Ryan and Alex got to work.