Edge of Dawn (31 page)

“It's a cave that has ruined columns and an altar, a bathing pool. There is a lot of vulcanism here. That's what makes the water hot, but it can also release toxic fumes. They are concentrated in this cave. Anything that went inside died, so the ancients decided it was the route to the underworld,” Marangoz explained.

“What's vul … vulcanism?” Mosi asked.

“Why don't you walk with our scientists for a minute and they can explain more?” Richard suggested. She nodded and moved to join Eddie, Chen, Rangan, and Trout.

Richard dropped back to Kenntnis's side and looked up into that dark face. The man seemed more present than he had in a long time. “Do you remember this place, sir?” Richard asked softly. He didn't get an answer, but for a brief moment it felt like his words might have been more than mere sound to the alien.

They skirted the edge of the gigantic amphitheater. Wind sighed in pine trees that stood like sentries on the horizon and bent the grass. Unfamiliar birdsong danced in the air. Marangoz led them down a path and toward a building that was reasonably intact. A modern metal roof had been placed over one part of what had clearly once been a Roman villa. They entered and were on an elevated walkway suspended a few feet above the floor. Each room had an elaborate mosaic floor, and many of the walls still held painted designs of flowers, Greek keys, landscapes. The work was beautiful.

“They understood perspective,” Chen said in wonder.

“Yep, invented concrete, glass windows, had hydraulics. Then you monkeys got really stupid and gave us the Dark Ages, the Black Death, and the Crusades. To which my kind all said,
Why, thank you very much.
” Cross's sarcasm was acid on the words.

“Not my people,” Chen shot back. “We were block-printing books and founding the Sung Dynasty and inventing gunpowder.”

“And
my
people invented chess, and the concept of zero, the decimal, the square root and the cube root, and algebra,” Ranjan broke in.

“Well, I'm sure not going to thank you for
that
one,” Weber said.

Richard felt a headache coming on, but he just couldn't muster the energy to shut them all up. Then he didn't have to because Eddie jumped in.

“Hey, dudes, isn't this the kind of shit that Lumina was founded to combat? That whole xenophobic my-shit's-better-than-your-shit stuff?”

“Perhaps a few too many ‘shits,'” Richard said with a significant look down at Mosi. “But we get your drift. Thank you, Ed—” Richard broke off, stammering his way into silence.

They had entered a large room. The walls were painted to resemble a summer sky. Despite the fading of centuries, the blue and the clouds conjured a sense of peace and ease. In this room, the elaborate floor mural had been covered with a layer of protective glass—it truly was remarkable.

It showed a banqueting scene. Men and women dressed in togas and stolas lounged on couches; one man wore a laurel wreath. The table was covered with trays of delicacies, and slaves were dotted around the table forever frozen at their tasks. In one corner, musicians played. Standing at the end of the table was a Roman soldier, his helmet beneath his arm, the other hand resting on the hilt of his sword—a series of interlocking gray curves. A Klein bottle at a time when such a thing shouldn't have existed. Richard knew that hilt. He had carried it, fitted it to his hand for the past three years of his life.

And standing behind the Roman officer and towering over him was Kenntnis. He was dressed in a plain tunic and sandals. The long-dead artist had captured some of the unique qualities of Kenntnis's face, and obsidian had been used for his skin. Seeing even a representation of the sword brought back to Richard the desperateness of their situation and his own culpability in the disaster. He had to grip the rail on the walkway to keep from dropping to his knees. The exhaustion he had been holding at bay fell on him like an avalanche.

Weber was suddenly there, catching him around the waist, keeping him on his feet. Richard groped for Weber's shoulder, clung for a moment, then straightened. Eddie and Chen had recognized the hilt. Eddie gripped Richard's arm hard enough to make him wince.

“He was a paladin!”

“Yes,” Richard said.

“Paladin, what does that mean?” Marangoz asked.

Richard shot Cross a look. The Old One looked back blandly, and Richard realized Kenntnis and Cross had been advising Atat
ü
rk in the late 1920s and early '30s. A period when there had been no paladin, no one to carry the sword.

“Mr. Kenntnis needs people in the field. A paladin leads those efforts,” Richard said. He stepped in close to Cross and said quietly, “What became of him?”

“Couldn't say. Before my time. Well, I was around, but just barely. Nose in the trough, lapping it up. Despite their engineering accomplishments, the Romans were real brutal motherfuckers. It was a movable feast following their legions.”

Kenntnis was behind the gawking crowd. The two soldiers Marangoz had brought for security were looking from Kenntnis to the mosaic and back again and talking rapidly in Turkish among themselves. Richard pushed through them all and went up to Kenntnis. He gently touched the alien's sleeve.

“Sir, I'd like to show you something.” There was no response. Richard took Kenntnis's hand and led him through the crowd. He pointed at the mosaic. For a long moment nothing happened, then the silver lights flared in Kenntnis's eyes bright enough to illuminate the floor, and then for a fraction of a second the room was filled with blinding light as if the world's largest flashbulb had just gone off. Everyone shouted in alarm and stumbled back. Ranjan lost his footing and fell off the walkway. Richard blinked away the halos of the afterimage. Ranjan was trying to climb off the glass and back onto the walkway. Fortunately, the glass was thick enough to bear his weight. Trout had pulled out a calculator, and the stubby fingers were flying across the small keys. Weber had Mosi wrapped in his arms.

Richard cautiously approached Kenntnis, who was once again standing with that faraway look. “Okay. Well. That got a reaction. Not exactly what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?” Weber asked.

“I don't know. A miracle?” He gave a twisted smile.

“Oh, you don't want one of those,” Cross said. “That would be bad. That would mean magic was at work. And we got no way to shut it down.”

*   *   *

Anxiety had his belly in an uproar as Grenier stepped out of the office and checked on the threshold when he saw Jeannette at her desk. “Why are you still here?”

The woman looked up at him, her expression cold and distant. “I had work I needed to finish.”

“Well, go home. It's seven o'clock.”

“I know Mr. Gold is on his way. I can stay—”

“No!” Grenier forced a smile and moderated his tone. “Really not necessary. I know I came on a bit tough in the beginning, but I really do value your knowledge and insights, Jeannette.”

The tone that had always worked on the older ladies in his congregation wasn't cutting it with the executive assistant. Her upper lip curled, and she swept him with a cold glance. She stood, gathered up her things, and said in a tone so neutral that it was in itself an insult, “Thank you.” She walked to the elevator.

Yes,
he thought,
she'll have to be fired once I'm past tonight.
Grenier waited to make certain she didn't return for some reason, nervously checking his watch. He was running out of time. He tried to jog to the conference room but was soon winded, and the jiggling of his gut was uncomfortable. He walked to the cabinet at the far end of the room, opened the lower section, knelt down with a grunt, and pulled out a large and elaborate first aid kit. Flipping open the snaps, he pushed back the top and surveyed the contents. The portable defibrillator was in the center slot.

He pulled it out, returned the case to the cabinet and hurried to the office. The granite desk didn't have a front so he couldn't hide the defibrillator underneath. He looked around frantically and finally settled on just tucking it in the trash can beneath his desk. He went to the bookcase and took down the cut-crystal decanter containing single-malt scotch and two cut-crystal highball glasses. He arranged everything on the desk and poured two fingers of scotch into his glass. He left the decanter unstoppered. It had to look as if he was just finishing pouring when Gold entered.

And what if he doesn't want a drink?

Unwelcome thought, that. Grenier pushed it aside and fingered the vial in his coat pocket. Somehow he had to get Gold to ingest the gamma hydroxybutyrate, known on the street as EZ Lay or Liquid Ecstasy. At higher dosages it caused unconsciousness. He hoped he had bought enough.

Grenier's frenzied preparations had kept him from having to actually contemplate what he was about to do. Now in the few moments he had, he sank down in the chair and replayed the conversation with Alexander Titchen. The billionaire's nasal voice with its syrupy Louisiana accent had held a gloating tone, making Grenier wish he had been less condescending to the man back in the day. Titchen had clearly enjoyed lording it over Grenier, laying out the conditions for Grenier's return.

“
You need to prove your sincerity, Mark.
”

“
I already told you the sword was lost. Richard is vulnerable. You can take him down now.
”

“
It was a nice start, but we need a bit more. We'd like y'all to remove the Lumina officers. Clear the way for our people.
”

“
Remove?
”

“
Don't be dense, Mark.
”

“
You mean kill…? I'm a fat fifty-four-year-old man!
” he had objected.

“
But cunning. You were always real cunning. Get back to us when you're done.
”

“
They're scattered all over the world. I can't get at them, and if I travel there and then they die…”
He had known he was whining but had been unable to stop.

“
Well, now, that's a fair point. I'll tell you what. Kill one of them, and we'll handle the rest. We just want you to have some skin in this game.
”

Kill one of them.
Could he do it? Grenier had done hideous and frightful things. He had ordered people killed, he'd ordered Richard beaten, he had even personally tortured the young man, but he had never killed anyone. Well, not with his own hands. But he had to if he was going to have any hope of surviving. He had picked Gold because he knew he could get the lawyer to come, and he figured the portly fifty-something lawyer would be an easier mark than the spare and fit Kenzo or the equally fit Dagmar.

Don't think about the end result. Just think about the process.

He heard the elevator arriving. Grenier surged to his feet, pulled out the vial, and tipped the GHB into the glass. Vial back into his pocket. He missed and it fell to the floor. No time to bend down. Actually couldn't bend over the bulge of his belly. Really no time to kneel. It was small, Gold probably wouldn't notice. He snatched up the decanter and splashed in scotch just as Gold bustled through the office door.

“You said there was a problem. What's happened?” the lawyer demanded.

“There's been a hacking attempt against our company computers. I think someone inside has been providing information to that kid that Richard fired.” Grenier smoothly handed Gold the glass while he was talking. The lawyer automatically took it.

“Jesus. Any idea who?”

“I have my suspicions.” Grenier picked up his own glass and clinked it against Gold's. He took a sip and mentally held his breath, waiting, hoping, watching.

Gold followed suit, and Grenier's gut felt suddenly loose with relief. Grenier waved Gold into the high-backed chair across the desk from him and took another encouraging sip from his glass. Gold took another sip.

“Well,” Gold nudged, “who is it?”

“I suspect my assistant.”

Gold gulped down a large swallow of scotch. “Jeannette? I find that hard to believe.”

“She's become very attached to Richard. As women often do,” Grenier said. “I think she feels more loyalty to him now than to Lumina.” Grenier drew out the words, taking his time, letting the seconds crawl by.

“She won't be easy to replace,” Gold said, and took another swallow of scotch. “As I recall, Kenntnis hired her when she was in her twenties.”

“If we fire her, I expect we will lose Joseph too,” Grenier said. “And that's worrisome. He knows this building, its weak points. They might get up to something. In fact, he's been very insubordinate.”

Gold took another drink. There was only a small amount of scotch left in his glass.

“There's clearly another floor below the pool level,” Grenier continued. “Joseph claims the only key to send the elevator down to that level is with Richard, there isn't a duplicate. I don't believe him. Do you know what's at the lowest level?”

The lawyer shook his head. “Not a clue.” The words were slurred. Gold frowned down into his glass. “I don't feel…” His eyes widened, and he looked up at Grenier with dawning understanding and sudden fear. “Wha … Wha…” He slumped, and the glass fell out of his hand, the last of the scotch wetting the Oriental rug. Grenier cursed. He hadn't anticipated that any would spill. He would have to blot it before the EMTs arrived.

Moving as swiftly as possible, Grenier pulled the portable defibrillator out of the trash can. Gold wasn't completely unconscious. His mouth worked, and a bit of drool ran down his chin. His eyes were filled with fear and desperation as he stared up at Grenier.

“I'm sorry,” Grenier said softly as he unbuttoned the lawyer's shirt. “You seem like a decent enough man, but you've never seen what I've seen. You don't know them and fear them as I do. And you can't keep me safe.” He was relieved to see that the man didn't wear an undershirt. That made it easier.