Free The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry Page A

corporate officers waiting for him in the adjacent dining room and stepped through the kitchen. An aroma of broiling fish and fried eggs teased his nostrils. He stopped a moment and admired what was simmering on the stove, then left the building through a rear exit and found himself in another of Venice's innumerable alleys, this one darkened by tall brick buildings thick with droppings.
    Three Inquisitors waited a few meters away. He nodded and they walked single file. At an intersection they turned right and followed another alley. He noticed a familiar stink--half drainage, half decaying stone--the pall of Venice. They stopped at the rear entrance to a building that housed a dress shop on its ground floor and apartments on its upper three stories. He knew they were now diagonally across the square from the cafe.
    Another Inquisitor waited for them at the door.
    "She's there?" Vincenti asked.
    The man nodded.
    He gestured and three of the men entered the building, while the fourth waited outside. Vincenti followed them up a flight of metal stairs. On the third floor they stopped outside one of the apartment doors. He stood down the hall as guns were drawn and one of the men prepared to kick the door.
    He nodded.
    Shoe met wood and the door burst inward.
    The men rushed inside.
    A few seconds later one of his men signaled. He stepped into the apartment and closed the door.
    Two Inquisitors held a woman. She was slender, fair-haired, and not unattractive. A hand was clamped over her mouth, a gun barrel pressed to her left temple. She was frightened, but calm. Expected, since she was a pro.
    "Surprised to see me?" he asked. "You've been watching for nearly a month."
    Her eyes offered no response.
    "I'm not a fool, though your government must take me for one."
    He knew she worked for the United States Justice Department, an agent with a special international unit called the Magellan Billet. The Venetian League had encountered the unit before, a few years back when the League first started investing in central Asia. To be expected, actually. America stayed suspicious. Nothing ever came from those inquiries, but now Washington again seemed fixated on his organization.
    He spied the agent's equipment. Long-range camera set on a tripod, cell phone, notepad. He knew questioning her would be useless. She could tell him little, if anything, he did not already know. "You've interfered with my breakfast."
    He gestured and one of the men confiscated her toys.
    He stepped to the window and gazed down into the still-deserted campo. What he chose next could well determine his future. He was about to play both ends against the middle in a dangerous game that neither the Venetian League nor Irina Zovastina would appreciate. Nor, for that matter, would the Americans. He'd planned this bold move for a long time.
    As his father had said many times, the meek deserve nothing.
    He kept his gaze out the window, raised his right arm, and flicked his wrist. A snap signaled that the woman's neck had broken cleanly. Killing he didn't mind. Watching was another matter.
    His men knew what to do.
    A car waited downstairs to take the body across town where the coffin from last night waited. Plenty of room inside for one more.

    Chapter SEVENTEEN
    DENMARK
    MALONE STUDIED THE MAN WHO'D JUST ARRIVED, ALONE, DRIVING an Audi with a bright rental sticker tacked on the windshield. He was a short, burly fellow with shocks of unkempt hair, baggy clothes, and shoulders and arms that suggested he was accustomed to hard work. Probably early forties, his features suggested Slavic influences--wide nose, deep-set eyes.
    The man stepped onto the front stoop and said, "I'm not armed. But you're welcome to check."
    Malone kept his gun leveled. "Refreshing to deal with professionals."
    "You're the one from the museum."
    "And you're the one who left me inside."
    "Not me. But I approved."
    "Lot of honesty from a man with a gun pointed at him."
    "Guns don't bother me."
    And he